Marxism is the most aggressive of the monocultures seeking to decimate India’s unique civilization, because it has no genuine creed, no core values, of its own. Hence it lacks a sense of the sacred or even the ethical, and relies wholly on the vitality of violence to achieve its ends. Yet even by the debased standards of Marxist discourse, D.N. Jha’s distasteful allegations about the cow as chow in an historically undefined but pristine period in the evolution of our dharmic tradition, strikes a new low (Hindustan Times, 17-18 December 2001).
Jha claims to be an eminent historian; hence his persuasive prattle about cow flesh constituting the haute cuisine and dietetics of ancient India raises critical questions about the use of oral traditions to arrive at historical conclusions in the absence of convincing corroborative evidence. Equally significant is his selective (even distorted) use of scriptures to portray both a negative and a false image of a community that was spiritually awakened so far back in time, and was already engaged in the perpetual quest for Consciousness and ennoblement.
To appreciate the extent of the outrage, it is necessary to understand briefly the nature and distinctiveness of the sannatan dharma (Eternal, Indic tradition). The sannatan dharma is a way of life based on the cosmic law (rta) and inspired by the ideal of universal welfare of all beings, both human and other creatures. Its inner dynamics are characterized by change and evolution, because it grew on the banks of rivers where the movement of waters is constant and sacred. As Prof. Lokesh Chandra, scholar of Hinduism and Buddhism, says, waters flow because of the banks of rivers; without banks the waters would not flow but would slush into marshes. In the spiritual universe, banks are our maryadas (sense of the sacred, sense of limits). The dharma promotes realization (sadhna) as opposed to a fixed revelation; hence our samskaras vary with time. The tradition accommodates a multiplicity of perceptions at the highest levels of spiritual perfection. The goal is to ennoble man (ud yaanam te purusa, RV); man apprehends God and becomes Brahman.
The Indic tradition also has the concept of yuga dharma (dharma of an epoch), as humanity is an end, never a means. In the context of the Vedic age, the cow was perceived as supreme nurturer and Mother, and various auspicious qualities attributed to her. Thought originated in her (goshthi). The cow was equated with wealth, and unlikely to be killed symbolically on account of the belief that if you killed a cow, you killed your prosperity. The Vedas describe the cow as sinless and “aghnya” (which cannot or should not be murdered), and prescribe severe punishments for those who killed her.
Jha, however, claims that the Rig Veda actually provides evidence of beef-eating. While it is true that animals were sacrificed to honour gods in the Vedic era, this was usually the male ox, buffalo or goat. The sacrifice is a special community event and not an act of individual consumerist eating. Perhaps Jha is unaware that the Vedas have four levels of meaning known only to the wise; “three, deposited in secret, indicate no meaning: men speak the fourth grade of speech” (RV, I.164.45). Alas for Jha, even his fourth grade of understanding is sadly defective. His “facts” and motives deserve to be exposed.
Jha calls Indra a tippler (a cheeky term for drunkard), with a special liking for bulls. But if we look at the original Sanskrit text of his first reference (RV, V.29.7ab), along with the translation by the British Sanskritist, H.H. Wilson, based on the Bhasya of Sayanacarya, we find that both verses speak clearly of buffaloes (mahisha), not bulls. Similarly, RV VI.17.11 and VIII.12.8 mention buffaloes (mahishamn). In RV X.27.2 and X.28.3 we find the bull (vrishabham); while X.86.14 speaks of large bulls (ukshano).
Obviously Jha has engaged in crude, half-clever genetic engineering to transform buffaloes (an entirely different species!) into cows, as well as bulls into cows. His two-part article (a back-door attempt to serialize his book after it was banned by the Hyderabad High Court?) takes so many liberties with truth that the entire Vedic Age appears as a debauched revelry reminiscent of Caligula’s Rome.
Agni, another pre-eminent Vedic deity who lives on in the daily jyot in Hindu homes, has also been projected as lascivious lover of animal food, including the flesh of horses, bulls and cows. But these are not interchangeable terms, and in Jha’s references, RV VIII.43.11 speaks of large bulls (ukshaannaya), while X.91.14 mentions the God as one to whom “vigorous horses and bulls and barren cows and sheep are consigned as burnt offerings.” Jha uses the same verse to prove that cattle were killed for Soma (both a drink and a God), but the text only mentions somaprishtaya, “(Agni) whose back is sprinkled with Soma.”
The reliance on the Rig Veda to prove the cow’s culinary debut is thus dubious. Jha’s sweeping references to later-day Grhyasutras and Dharmasutras may be dismissed, as these texts were prone to corruption and accretions, as noted by Bharat Ratna P.V. Kane. However, his contention that the grammarian Panini used the word goghn to mean ‘guest for whom a cow is slain,’ is utterly false and mischievous. In fact, Panini created a special sutra, dashagoghnau sampradane (3/4/73), to establish the rule that goghn will mean only the receiver of a cow. The meaning ‘killer of the cow’ was interpolated by Pandit Taranath of Calcutta in his famous Sanskrit-to-Sanskrit dictionary, Vachaspatyam, at the instance of his British masters. Swami Prakashanand Saraswati has established this convincingly in The True History and the Religion of India (Motilal Banarasidas).
In his shocking quest to splatter the entire Indic tradition with the blood of cows, Jha has not spared even Sita! The poor goddess is mentioned as promising the Yamuna a thousand cows and a hundred jars of wine when Ram accomplished his vow; the suggestion being that the cows will be sacrificed. Valmiki however states yakshe tvam go sahasrena sura ghatashen cha, which merely means a puja. There is never a sacrifice for a river, and the cows are to be gifted.
Cow slaughter is held to be an important part of public sacrifices like the vajapeya yagna. According to German Sanskritist, Hermann Oldenberg (Die Religion des Veda), in the Vajapeya sacrifice, the priest sprinkles the sacrificer with the sacrificial meal mixed with water, milk and various nutritive substances. The horses smell the sacrificial meal, both before and after the race which is a part of this feast, in order to get power and speed. The smoke emanating from the sacrificial fire as well as the aroma of the sacrifice are considered as effective carriers of the power of blessing contained in the sacrifice.
Of course, we need not be dogmatic that there was no cow killing in ancient India, but we can dismiss Jha’s contention that there is unambiguous archaeological evidence in support of it. Equally false is his assertion that despite the Upanishadic exhortation to ahimsa (non-violence to all living beings), a call supported by Buddha (accused of eating beef and pork) and Mahavira, the cow could not became sacred until the early medieval period.
However problematical the historical dating of the Vedic Age may be, the cow became sacred and aghnya during the Rig Veda itself. It emerged as vahan (vehicle) of Pashupati (Shiva), and the special protectee of the cow-herd god, Krishna. The virtues of its products – milk, curd, ghee, dung and urine – have been extolled from the time of the Vedas, and there is nothing elusive about its sanctity.
Indeed, we can detect shoddy motives behind Jha’s contention that Hindus began to venerate the cow only from the early medieval period, when beef-eating Muslims descended on the scene. The truth is that in the Vedic period itself, the cow was considered the symbol of the light of the sun, the life-giving waters, the nurturing earth, the intellect; in short, the symbol of Consciousness.
Hindu reverence for the cow is not a banal issue of vegetarianism, or of the forms of meat that may be consumed. The cow is the symbol of the Hindu community’s characteristic of perceiving divinity in all forms of life, indeed, in the earth itself. Hindu ethics do not conceive man as the master of creation with the mandate to subdue the earth, much less other human societies; rather, man is an organic part of the universal harmony. It is remarkable that even though Jha and his ilk regard Hindus as an imagined community, they feel so threatened by its continued existence that they must batter it into nothingness.
Published in The Hindustan Times, 9 January 2002 with some cuts