This is one of the most common and universal phenomena in India's unique worship of the god cow. Once, in the vegetable market where I often go, I saw a big old cow break into a fruit stall, swaying left and right, and several mangoes on both sides were imported. The stall owner is not in a hurry. Blow it away slowly. Another morning, I saw an Indian middle-aged man buy some big cakes at a food stall and feed them to some old cows nearby. Old Niu Yi opened his mouth and swallowed one, wagging his tail leisurely, as if to show that the breakfast was delicious.
In Bangalore, I also visited a famous cow temple. There is a huge bronze cow enshrined in it, half lying, with a head about three meters high. According to legend, peanuts are grown locally, and this cow always steals peanuts. One day, I don't know who killed him in the peanut field. The next day, people found that the cow had grown much taller, and on the third day, it had grown much taller. Cattle keep growing, causing people's panic-the god cow is going to be in trouble. So people built a temple on the spot and enshrined it in the temple. In this way, the cows stopped growing. Therefore, peanuts have become an essential offering. Every year, a peanut festival of a grand temple fair is held in front of the temple square to worship the sacred cow. Obviously, the truth of this matter cannot be verified, but people's respect for cattle is true. The tour guide told us that there are many higher and bigger cow temples in India. Of course, those cows are not suspected of stealing peanuts.
In India, old cows are specially protected. In India, except for two states (West Bengal and Kerala), the laws of other places prohibit the killing of cattle. Banning the slaughter of cows is a clear provision of the Indian Constitution.
India's worship of the sacred cow has a long history. According to myths and legends, Shiva, one of the three great gods, has a bull as a mount. I've been with the Lord God for a long time, and the cow is spiritual. I'd better love my house and my dog. In short, people worship cows. There must be bull statues in front of Shiva Temple in India. Most of them are prone, on the stone platform, and some of them have pavilions built on them, becoming separate small temples. Statues are made of stone, bronze and ordinary colors, and painted with colors. They are all robust and lifelike. The statue of the old cow is also covered with garlands, sharing the glory of the Lord God.
Once after visiting a temple, I found that the tour guide asked the temple for a white powder, and the whole forehead was covered with glistening things. I asked curiously what it was and what it did. He told me that this is a pious prayer, praying for the blessing of the gods to eliminate disasters and avoid evil spirits. To my great surprise, those white powders turned out to be the ashes of cow dung burning. He explained that this custom is to remind himself that individuals are humble, ordinary and useless, just like cow dung everywhere, to show his piety and respect for the gods. I understand that the tour guide kindly gave me some, but I firmly refused with respect. I think many evil things in the world, such as war and environmental destruction, are rooted in the expanding ambitions of individuals or human beings themselves. For those people who have nothing to hide and are arrogant, it's time to put cow dung ash on their foreheads and let them have a good drink.
Of course, some practices are not flattering. For example, some places use cow urine as medicine, and some people drink fresh cow urine to treat diseases. I have read relevant reports that the phenomenon of drinking cow urine in a certain place is so fierce that cow urine has become a best-selling product, so that it is sometimes out of stock. However, the treatment of cow urine also has its scientific basis. It is reported that a drug with cow urine as the main raw material has also obtained a US patent.
In the Vedas, the oldest religious book in India, there are records of praising cows and how to treat them. For example, cows are sacred, the mother of the universe, the mother of the past and the future, the mother of the gods and the most important thing.
In the classic epic Ramayana, there is a chapter about the invincible bull. The general idea is that a king has an invincible bull, which can do anything and give whatever the king wants. This caused another king's jealousy, robbed the cow, and triggered a bitter war. There are also some poems about cattle in the epic, which equate killing cattle with patricide, treason and other felonies, and they are all capital crimes. In Mahabharata, it is said that people who kill cows or bulls are extremely guilty.
Throughout the history of India, the protection of cattle-bulls and cows has a far-reaching practical basis. India is a traditional agricultural country, and self-sufficient small-scale agriculture is the most basic way of life for hundreds of millions of farmers. In rural areas, the most basic production and living tools and assistants of farmers are old cows, which are also the most important family property. Farming, transportation, sowing, harvesting, sugar production, oil production, etc. Mainly powered by old cows, while milk comes directly from cows. The main recipes of vegetarian Indian farmers-pasta, beans, rice and milk-are inseparable from the hard work of old cows.
Cow dung is an important fuel and fertilizer. Cow dung has no peculiar smell after drying, does not attract flies, and can repel mosquitoes when burning. Cow dung also has the function of disinfection and antisepsis, which can be compared with Lysol. Indian farmers like to stick fresh cow dung around the earth wall when it is wet, and then stick it firmly on the wall when it is dry, so that it can be warm in winter and cool in summer. Excess cow dung is made into dung cakes, dried and piled into circular dung piles, which is a unique winter firewood in rural areas. Driving through the countryside, you can always see neat piles of cow dung in the farm yard. It is said that the size of the cow dung pile represents the number of old cows, and also shows the wealth of the owner to a considerable extent. If you see a family with a dozen piles of cow dung, it is probably a big family.
Old cows play a vital role in farmers' families, which is the core of rural life and the most important natural resource. In ancient Indian poetry, the life of cows without milk lost hope. Therefore, in rural areas, the old cow is regarded as one of the family members and is carefully taken care of. People often bathe and trim old cows. Every year, Hinduism has an ox festival, and people thank old Niu Yi for his hard work, which is similar to Thanksgiving in the United States.
The old cow itself has many virtues: diligence, hard work, obscurity, selfless dedication, eating grass and milking. ...
Myths and legends, religious beliefs and realistic traditions interact and combine with each other. Indians protect the old cow, and when it develops to the extreme, it becomes a worship of the god cow. Today, this ancient custom is still passed down from generation to generation. This is still related to the important role of the old cow in the modern Indian rural economy.
2 1 century, the real life in India is still rural life. Because there are still more than 700 million farmers living in rural areas. Farming and vegetarianism are still the way of life of Indian farmers for thousands of years, and many ancient customs are still passed down here. Old cows still play an indispensable core role in rural production and life. Killing cattle is still the biggest taboo in rural India.
According to relevant statistics, there are currently more than 200 million old cattle in India, accounting for nearly a quarter of the global cattle population. Farmers' arable land is generally less than one mu, and it is difficult to afford agricultural machinery by the harvest on the land, but the old-age cattle can still be maintained. At present, agricultural production is still dominated by animal power, accounting for more than two thirds of rural electricity, while electricity (about half of rural areas have no electricity) and oil only account for about one tenth. Old Niu Yi can provide 800 million tons of organic fertilizer and fuel every year. India has150,000 ox carts, which are the main means of transportation in rural areas. Milk is still the main drink of Indians, and India is still the largest producer and consumer of milk in the world. The old cow is still closely related to the production and life of modern Indians. In this way, the custom of supporting old cows and worshiping old cows is still circulating. Hinduism believes in reincarnation, and many Indians hope to be reincarnated as an old cow in the next life.
Mahatma Gandhi once strongly advocated the protection of old cows, especially cows. He said, "Cows are the mothers of millions of people in India. The ancient sages, no matter who they are, came from cows. " "In my opinion, raising cattle is the most wonderful phenomenon in human evolutionary history." "Protecting cattle is a gift that India has taught the world. As long as Hindus protect cattle, Hinduism will be passed down forever. " "Killing cattle is a sin and should be abandoned." "The greatness and moral progress of a nation can be reflected in its attitude towards animals. Raising cattle is to protect those helpless and fragile lives. " "I worship cows and will defend this worship."
Of course, India is a multi-religious country. Hinduism accounts for 82%, and the worship of the sacred cow is mainly the tradition of Hindu believers. In addition, there are about 12% Muslims, nearly 3% Christians and about 1.3% Sikhs. These people do not have the taboo of eating and killing cows, especially Muslims, who will sacrifice old cows in some grand festivals. At the beginning of last century, there was a large-scale bloody conflict between Hindus and Muslims for killing old cows. In fact, many Hindu festivals also sacrifice livestock to the gods, but not cows.
The worship of the sacred cow has also brought a series of social problems. Slaughtering old cattle is not allowed in most parts of the country, and it is illegal to sell old cattle, which leads to an increase in the number of cattle. At present, there are 500 million large livestock in India, about half of which are old cows. Some people say that "if India doesn't eat old cows, the old cows will eat India", which is not unreasonable. The cow's mouth really exploded. Those sick, old and weak cows are often abandoned by their owners and let them get lost. As a result, a large number of poor stray cattle appeared, wandering in cities and rural areas, wandering at will, dying. They hinder traffic, spread diseases, create rubbish, pollute the environment and destroy the city appearance.
In reality, smuggling, selling and stealing old cattle are also very serious. In recent years, mad cow disease has been rampant in the world's major beef producing countries, which makes people talk about it. Indian old cattle are welcomed by international beef consuming countries because they eat vegetarian forage and have nothing to do with the disease. In the past five years, Indian beef exports have doubled. In 2003, India slaughtered 0/4.5 million old cattle, ranking fourth in the world (China ranked first with 45 million). In addition, India's leather industry is also very developed. There are thousands of leather factories in the country, employing millions of people, and the annual leather export is nearly $2 billion. Driven by high profits, there are naturally many lawless people, and many abandoned cows will disappear forever. On the way of smuggling and trafficking, old cows are usually subjected to cruel abuse, such as being blinded by smoke, being thirsty and suffering from other physical injuries.
In view of these situations, many non-governmental organizations have been established with the responsibility of caring for cows. They actively promote and care for the old cows, and personally donate or take care of the abandoned cows. The government has also funded the establishment of "shelters" and "refuges" for abandoned cattle, and there are more than 3,000 such places in China. The old cattle shelter in New Delhi, the capital, is the largest in China, and all places can accommodate tens of thousands of homeless stray cattle. However, there are nearly 40,000 stray cattle in the capital. The Delhi High Court has issued a court order that these stray cattle pose a danger to the capital and should be moved to other places. Or auction on the spot, or send it to other reception places. After all, it is easier said than done. On the streets of the Indian capital, the poor old cows are still wandering silently as usual.
From the perspective of economic development, protecting the old cattle is to protect the inefficient small-scale peasant production mode of family agriculture, which hinders the popularization of agricultural mechanization and further affects the liberation and development of rural productive forces. The worship of god cow has become the fetters and fetters of agricultural economic progress.
According to the general law of human social development, industrial civilization will inevitably replace agricultural civilization, and agriculture seems destined to become an auxiliary part of social and economic development. Even in an agricultural country, agriculture should be mechanized and industrialized. Although the development of industrialization and urbanization in Indian society is unbalanced and the progress is slow in the vast rural areas, its progress trend is still unstoppable and irreversible, and the proportion of agriculture in the national economy is declining. It will be an indisputable fact in the near future that the old cow, which plays a central role in the small-scale peasant economy, will be gradually replaced by machinery and withdrawn from the historical stage. Then, it is natural to imagine the fate and ending of the sacred cow worship in India with a long history.
Thinking of this, I feel a little sorry for those silent friends. I still remember Li Bai's poem: "Spring grass does not thank glory, wood does not complain about autumn." Who wields a whip to drive the four blessings, everything is logical. "The rise and fall of nature is like this, as is the change of history and the fate of all beings. Once brilliant and brilliant, it is enough.