There’s no paucity of state laws being passed in the name of sacred cows, figuratively as well as literally. Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill was one of the many bills that was proposed to make the sacramental cow a reality. Yet the archaeological and literary evidence from the ancient Indian subcontinent illustrate a healthy practice of beef eating. Its transformation in the psyche of the society has been quite a journey. Avoiding the obscurities around the ‘still in question’ Harappan culture, let’s trace the beef eating practice from the Vedic period, to how the present practice regarding it seems so paradoxical.
The concept of the sacred cow was unknown to the people of the Vedic society. Most of them were pastoralists and cattle played a pivotal role in their lives. It was a source of food, meat and milk, means of transaction and transportation as well. The hymns of Rigveda reveal the significant role of cattle in Vedic economy, the hymns mention cattle as a source of wealth, used as currency, and the desired booty in war – the term Gavisti used for battle, translates to “struggle for kine”. Such indisputable economic role might seem oxymoronic when juxtaposing it with the ritualistic role of cattle in the Vedic tradition. The Vedic cult was based on sacrifices, and cattle were among the chief sacrificial elements of that time. The list of sacrificial items had a large presence of animals, cows being one of them, and the flesh was ritually consumed by the celebrants. Females of the species were particularly consumed during matrimonial celebrations. During the times of Atharva Veda, the beef eating practice remained unaltered but was censured in a few cases. The cow however, was presented as gifts of honour, slaughtered and consumed on the arrival of some distinguished guests like one’s teacher, priests, kings, bride-groom, and Vedic students upon the completion of their studies. Vedic literature entitled the guest as goghna, that is, cow killer. Thus, in the understanding of Vedic literature, the concept of a sacred cow for the longest remained invisibilized.
The next literature period with reference to beef eating practices is the Brahmana period. During this period, it seems that such practices attained some velocity, but literature present on the subject reflects some contradictions. On the one hand Satapatha Brahmana cites the sage, Yajnavalkya, expressing his fondness for beef and on the other hand, the text also exhibits exhortations against the same.
A major development on the subject took place in the Upanishadic era. It was a period of social changes accompanied by widespread dissatisfaction with the old Vedic religion, its beliefs and values. This era saw ideological rivalries between several emerging religions, pursuing deeper levels of intelligibility – birthing asceticism and mysticism in the Indian philosophy which was prevalent in marked contrast with the unbridled optimism of early Vedic hymns. While Buddhism and Jainism were gaining popularity, they criticized the sacrificial nature of Vedic culture, and the doctrine of Ahimsa was being adopted widely. In Hinduism however, the concept of Ahimsa gradually came about to reinforce the existing attitudes towards cows from the Vedic times. The ritualistic role of the cattle was increasingly emphasizing its importance and being nurtured around the notion of protecting kine. Initially, Ahimsa was not particularly associated with cows, and the concept of a sacred cow remained ambiguous. The popular practices may have differed but the sanctity of a cow was entering Hindu literature, fourth century A.D onwards and got firmly entrenched by the time of Purana, during sixth century A.D.
The Sanskrit epic, Mahabharata is a testimony to an important transition, which was a witness to the anthropomorphization of cows. The popular myth exhibits a great famine, when King Prithu took up his bow and arrow to pursue the Earth and forced her to yield nourishment for his people. The Earth assumed the form of a cow and begged him to spare her life – she then permitted him to milk her. This myth paints a picture of the cow as the paradigmatic animal that yields food without being killed. There’s another story to draw inspiration from – the story of Lord Krishna. One of the most recognized elements of Krishna is his role as the divine cow- herder and lover. For Hindus, Lord Krishna as a cow became a symbolic representation for motherly affection. It was just a matter of time when the phrase, “gaay hamari mata hai” got embedded in the Brahmanical thought process and the sanctity of cow was adopted firmly as a fundamental tenet of the Hindu faith. Hindus who consumed meat started making special exceptions for the meat of cows. It also became a matter of status – vegetarianism was most popular only in the higher castes. Similarly, the lower castes dissociated from beef when they aspired to move up on the ladder of social ranking.
With the rise of Islamic culture in India, the sacred cow doctrine gained momentum. Cow was now seen as a cultural symbol associated with Hinduism. As a matter of statesmanship and for reconciliation with the Hindus, many Muslim rulers made legislative injunctions against slaughtering of cows. For the most part of the Mughal rule, this legislation was upheld. By the late seventeenth century, a cow was used as a political statement and it served the purpose as a symbol against the Muslim rule. For instance, Maratha ruler Shivaji, recourses to use the issue of protecting cows, to gain popular support for his rival, the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb, the supposedly diabolical bearer of a threatening faith, Islam.
The next conflict of discourses emerged in the colonial period. The British taste of beef provided impetus further to the cause of cow protection. And just like Shivaji, this period saw M.K Gandhi using cows as his political symbol against the British. The nationalist movement saw the usage of the image of the Earth cow as a symbolic representation of Mother Earth, to symbolise Gandhi’s imagined Indian nation. This attitude towards cows was tied to his idea of non-violence. Yet, even Gandhi never called for the banning of cow slaughter in India, as he recognised the diversity that the subject encompasses. However, the commitment to the sanity and inviolability of the cow was so deeply embedded in the Hindu collective consciousness that legislation regarding cow protection found its way into the Constitution of India itself. And as we know, the process hasn’t slowed down.
In post-independent India, the cow symbolism continues to hold a prominent position in the country’s political realms. The proponents of the Hindutva ideology have been using this symbol for stimulating religious sentiments amongst people of a particular faith and using it against others. In the recent past, the concept of the sacred cow has become a propaganda, being used recklessly by political leaders without realizing the effect it has on the ‘secular and democratic’ India. Beef eating practice today seems like a matter of status symbol amongst Hindus and a matter of life and death for those who wish to indulge in it.
Bibliography
- Chakravarti, Mahadev. “Beef-Eating in Ancient India.” Social Scientist 7, no. 11 (1979): 51-55.
- Pal, Amar Nath. “The Sacred Cow in India : A Reappraisal.” Indian Anthropologist 26, no. 2 (1996): 53-62.
- Simoons, Frederick J., Frederick I. Simoons, and Deryck O. Lodrick. “Background to Understanding the Cattle Situation of India: The Sacred Cow Concept in Hindu Religion and Folk Culture.” Zeitschrift Für Ethnologie 106, no. 1/2 (1981): 121-37.
- Doniger, Wendy, Hinduism and its complicated history with cows (and people who eat them), 2017, The Conversation: Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Khyati is a third year History student at Lady Shri Ram College for women. She believes that words have the power to change the society, and tends to use these. Interested in research, she's expecting to pursue the same in furure.