This is India's unique sacred cow worship is one of the most common and universal phenomenon. Once, in the often go to the market, witnessed a big old cow broke into the fruit stall, left a shake right a shake, both sides of the stall bed of a few mangoes on the import. The stall owner was not in a hurry, but just slowly blew it away. Another morning, I saw a middle-aged Indian man buy a few large cakes at a food stall and feed them to some old cows nearby. The old cows swallowed one as soon as they opened their mouths and wagged their tails leisurely, as if to indicate that this breakfast tasted pretty good.
In Bangalore, I also visited a famous cow temple. Inside is dedicated to a huge bronze bull, half-recumbent and with a head about three meters high. Legend has it that peanuts were grown in the area and this bull always came to steal them. One day, it was killed by someone in the peanut field. The next day, people found that the cow grew a lot, and on the third day, it grew a lot taller. The cow kept growing, causing people to panic - the sacred cow was going to have a disaster. So people built a temple on the spot and enshrined it in the temple. Only then did the cow stop growing taller and taller. Thus, peanuts also became an essential offering. Every year, a peanut festival with a grand temple fair was held in the square in front of the temple to worship the sacred cow. This matter is true or false, obviously not test, but people's respect for the cow is real. The guide told us, in India, than this higher and bigger bull temple there are many. Of course, those cows did not steal peanuts suspected.
In India, cows are given special protection. In India, the killing of cows is prohibited by law everywhere except 2 states (West Bengal & Kerala). The ban on cow slaughter is enshrined in the Constitution of India.
The history of cow worship in India is a long one. In mythology, one of the three main gods of destruction, Shiva, whose mount is a bull. Long with the main god, the cow also has the spirit of it, or love, in short, people also worship the cow. Shiva temples throughout India, there must be a bull statue. Most of them are lying down, on the stone platform, some built on a small pavilion, become a separate small temple. Statue of stone, copper, general color, there are painted in color, all are robust spirit lifelike. The statue of the old bull is also garlanded with flowers and shares in the honor and glory of the Lord God.
Once, after visiting a temple, I found that the guide had begged a white powder from the temple, and the whole forehead was painted white. Curious, I asked what it was and what its effects were. He told me that it was a pious way of begging the gods for blessings and dispelling calamities and evil spirits. To my great surprise, the white powder was the ash from burning cow dung. He explained that this custom is a way to remind oneself not to forget that the individual is humble, common and ordinary, and that it is NOTHING, like cow dung, which is found everywhere, in order to show one's devotion and reverence to the gods. The guide kindly offered to share a bit of it with me as well, which I understood, but firmly refused with all due respect. I think that the root of many bad things in the world, such as wars and environmental destruction, is the growing ambition of individuals or human beings themselves. For those who are fearless and arrogant, it is time to smear cow dung ash on their foreheads and give them a head start.
Of course, some of the practices are also not complimentary. For example, in some places, cow urine is used as medicine, and some people drink fresh cow urine to cure diseases. I've seen reports that the trend of drinking cow urine is so strong that it has become a best-seller, so much so that it's sometimes off the market. However, the cow urine cure also has its scientific basis, according to the report of a cow urine as the main raw material of the drug has also obtained a U.S. patent it.
In India's oldest religious texts, the Vedas, there is praise for cows and how to treat them. For example, cows are sacred, cows are the mother of the universe, the mother of the past and the future, the mother of the gods, and the most important thing.
The classical epic Ramayana has a chapter on the invincible sacred cow. It is to the effect that a certain king had an invincible sacred cow, which was omnipotent and delivered whatever the king wished for. This caused jealousy in another king who came to grab this sacred cow and started a bitter war. There are also verses in the epics about the cow, equating the killing of the cow with felonies such as patricide and treason, all of which are capital offenses. The Mahabharata, on the other hand, says that a person who kills a cow or a bull is guilty of a great crime.
Throughout the history of India, the protection of cows-bulls and cows-has a far-reaching practical basis. India is a traditionally agrarian country where subsistence smallholder farming is the most basic way of life for hundreds of millions of farmers. In rural areas, the most basic tool and helper of farmers is the cow, which is also the most important family property. Plowing, transportation, sowing, harvesting, sugar production, oil extraction, etc., mainly rely on the oxen to provide power, while the milk is directly from the cow. The main recipes of the vegetarian Indian farmer - pasta, beans, rice, milk - are all based on the work of the cow.
Cow dung is an important fuel and fertilizer. When dried, cow dung is odorless, does not attract flies, and can be burned to repel mosquitoes. Cow dung is also disinfectant and antiseptic effect, its efficacy can be compared with Lysol. Indian farmers like to put fresh cow dung while wet on the four sides of the earth wall, after drying on the wall more firmly stained, which can play a winter warm summer shade of the magical effect. The extra cow dung is then made into dung cakes, dried and piled into round stacks, which is a unique winter firewood in the countryside. When you drive through the countryside, you can always see a neat stack of cow dung in the courtyard of a farmhouse. I have heard people say that the size of the cow dung stacks represents the number of old cows, and also indicates the wealth of the owner to a certain extent. If you see a family with a dozen or more stacks of cow dung, it's probably a big family.
The role of old cows in a peasant family is crucial, the centerpiece of rural life, the most and most important natural resource. It is written in ancient Indian poems that whoever's cow runs out of milk loses hope for the life of his family. Therefore, in rural areas, old cows are considered as one of the family members and are carefully cared for, and people often bathe and trim them. Hinduism has a cow festival every year, people thank the old cow for a year of hard work, the content is similar to the American Thanksgiving.
The old cow itself, has a variety of virtues: hard work, hard work, obscurity, selfless dedication, eating grass, milk ......
Myths and legends, religious beliefs and real traditions influence each other and the combination of the Indian people to protect the old cow, the development of the extreme became the worship of sacred cows. To this day, this ancient custom is still passed on from generation to generation. This is still with the old cow in the modern Indian rural economy in the important role related to it.
In the twenty-first century, the real Indian life is still rural life. For there are still more than 700 million farmers, living in the countryside. Farming and vegetarianism is still the way of life of Indian farmers for thousands of years, many ancient customs are still inherited here unchanged. Old cows still play a central and indispensable role in rural life. Killing cows is still the biggest taboo in rural India.
According to the relevant statistics, there are currently more than 200 million old cows in India, accounting for nearly a quarter of the global cattle population. Farmers generally less than an acre of arable land, relying solely on the harvest on the land is difficult to afford to buy farm machinery, while raising old cattle can still be maintained. Now agricultural production is still dominated by animal power, cattle power accounted for more than two-thirds of rural power, while electricity (about half of the countryside is not connected to electricity) and oil and other power only accounted for about one-tenth. India's old cattle provide 800 million tons of organic fertilizer and fuel a year. India has 15 million bullock carts, which are the main means of transportation in the countryside. Milk is still the main drink of Indians and India remains the world's largest producer and consumer of milk. The old cow is still very much a part of modern Indian life. In this way, the custom of keeping and worshipping old cows is still passed on. Hinduism believes in reincarnation, and many Indians hope that they will be reincarnated as an old cow in the next life.
Mahatma Gandhi was a strong advocate for the protection of old cows, especially cows. He said, "The cow is the mother of millions of people in India. The ancient sages, whoever they were, came from cows." "In my opinion, keeping the cow is one of the most wonderful phenomena in the history of human evolution." "The preservation of cows is Hinduism's gift to the world, and as long as Hindus preserve cows, Hinduism will live on forever." "The slaughter of cows is a sin and should be rejected." "The greatness and moral progress of a nation can be seen in its attitude towards animals. Keeping cows means protecting those helpless and vulnerable lives." "I worship the cow and will defend that worship."
India is, of course, a country of many religions. Hinduism numbers 82% of the population, and sacred cow worship is largely a tradition for Hindu devotees. There are also about 12 percent Muslims, nearly 3 percent Christians, about 1.3 percent Sikhs and others. These people have no taboos against eating and killing cows, and Muslims, in particular, are expected to sacrifice old cows on certain grand festivals. At the beginning of the last century, there was a massive bloody conflict between Hindus and Muslims over the killing of old cows. In fact, numerous festivals in Hinduism, but also the slaughter of livestock to sacrifice to the gods, just not to the cow as a sacrifice.
The cult of the sacred cow has also brought about a series of social problems. Most parts of the country do not allow the slaughter of old cows, and the trafficking of old cows is illegal, which has resulted in the increase in the population of cattle. At present, India has 500 million large livestock, about half of which are old cows. It has been said, "If India does not eat the old cows, then the old cows will eat India", and it is not a far-fetched statement that the cattle population is indeed exploding. The sick, old and weak cows are often abandoned and released by their owners and left to wander. As a result, there is a large number of poor lost cows, wandering around the cities and villages, roaming at will and fending for themselves. They obstruct traffic, spread disease, create garbage, pollute the environment and destroy the cityscape.
In reality, the smuggling, trafficking and killing of old cows is also a serious situation. In recent years, the world's major beef-producing countries have been plagued by mad cow disease. India's old cattle because of its eating vegetarian grass and the disease is not involved, which is welcomed by the international beef consumer countries. India's beef exports have doubled in the last five years, and in 2003, India slaughtered 14.5 million head of cattle, the fourth largest slaughterhouse in the world (China's 45 million head was the largest). In addition, India's tanning industry is also very developed, there are thousands of tanneries throughout the country, employing millions of people, the annual leather exports nearly 2 billion U.S. dollars. Driven by high profits, there is naturally no shortage of unscrupulous people, and many abandoned cows go missing forever. In the smuggling and trafficking route, the old cattle are usually subjected to very cruel abuse, such as being smoked blind, starvation and thirst, other limb mutilation and so on.
In response to these situations, many civil organizations have been established with the mission of keeping old cows. They actively publicize the love of old cows, and physically donate money or volunteer to take care of abandoned cows. The government also funded the establishment of abandoned cattle "shelter", "shelter", the country has more than 3,000 such places. The capital, New Delhi, has the largest cattle shelter in the country, with space for tens of thousands of homeless cows. However, there are nearly 40,000 stray cows in the capital. The Delhi High Court had issued a court order that these stray cows were posing a danger to the capital and should be relocated elsewhere. Either they should be auctioned locally or sent to other shelters. All said and done, how easy is it to do. The poor old cows are still roaming the streets of the Indian capital as they have always done.
From the perspective of economic development, the protection of the old cow, is to protect the inefficiency of the family as a unit of cultivation of small farmers, hindering the popularization of agricultural mechanization, thus affecting the liberation and development of rural productivity. The worship of the sacred cow has become a constraint on the progress of the agricultural economy.
The general rule of human social development, industrial civilization is bound to replace the agricultural civilization, agriculture seems to be destined to be reduced to the auxiliary part of socio-economic development. Even in agricultural countries, agriculture has to be mechanized and industrialized. Although the industrialization and urbanization of Indian society have developed unevenly, and progress has been slow in the rural areas in general, the trend of progress is still unstoppable and irreversible, and the proportion of agriculture in the national economy has been declining. As in the smallholder economy plays a central role in the old cattle, its gradual replacement by machinery, out of the historical stage, this will be the near future indisputable fact. Then India's long history of sacred cow worship, the formation of the sacred cow culture, its fate and the end, naturally conceivable.
Thinking of this, I can't help but feel some sadness for those speechless friends. Remembered Li Bai's poem: "Grass does not thank the glory in the spring wind, wood does not complain about the fall in the fall. Who wielded the whip to drive the four movements, the rise and fall of all things are natural." The rise and fall of nature is so, the change of history, the fate of all beings is not so. Once glorious glory, enough.