[Advaita-l] Gomaatha

[Anbu sivam2]

It is not my intention to post anything that is beyond the scope of this
list.  I sincerely believe this subject is part of our dharma that no
advaitin can ignore.

Anbu

Cow as a Sacred Asset of the Nation
Subramanian  Swamy, 12 Nov. 2009       India has 150 million cows today,
giving an average of less than 200 litres of milk per year. If they could be
fed and looked after, then these divine animals can give an  average of
11,000 litres of milk  as the Israeli cows do.  That could provide milk for
the whole world. The milk we produce today is the cheapest in the world.
With enhanced production by raising the productivity of milch cows we can
become the world’s largest exporter of milk and India’s biggest foreign
exchange earner.

      Yet our West influenced intellectuals and mentally dominated by
foreign idiom, sneer at the mention of the cow, leave alone speaking about
the cow as an asset to the nation. But we know that these intellectuals
first sneered at yoga, now it is a fashion for them doing *pranayama *at
cocktail parties. They also sneered at our sanyasis, calling them
disparagingly as “Godmen”. Now they flock to ashrams with their white
friends ever since the Beatles did. Who knows, they may soon boast of a cow
in their backyards. For those of us who are *desi*  by pedigree and
conviction, I place some facts about the cow in the new perspective of
modern Hindutva.

      The cow was elevated to the status of divinity in the *Rg.Veda* iself.
In Book VI,  the Hymn XXVIII attributed to  Rishi Bhardwaja, extols the
virtue of the cow. In  Atharva Veda (Book X, Hymn 10), the cow is formally
designated as Vishnu, and “all that the Sun surveys.” This divine quality of
the cow has been affirmed by Kautilya in his Arthsastra (Chapter XXIX) as
well.

      The Indian society has addressed the cow as *gow mata*. The Churning
of the Sea episode  brings to light the story of the creation of the cow.
Five divine Kamadhenus (wish cows), viz, Nanda, Subhadra, Surabhi, Sushila,
Bahula emerged in the churning.

      Cow is there in the company of Bhagwan Dattatreya and Gopal Krishna.
Cow is the vehicle of Shaillputri and Gowri – two of the nine manifestations
of Goddess Durga.  Ancient coins with image of bull Nandi on them have been
found in excavations.

      Thousands of names of places, persons and things in our country have
name of the cow: e.g. Gauhati, Gorakhpur, Goa, Godhra, Gondiya, Godavari,
Goverdhan, Gautam, Gomukh, Gokarna, Goyal, Gochar etc. , that signify the
deep reverence and high ground reserved for the cow and her progeny in our
culture. Why ? Because of the deep abiding faith that the cow is verily the
Annapurna.

      In 2003, the National Commission on Cattle presided over by Justice
G.M. Lodha, submitted its recommendations to the NDA Government. The Report
(in 4 volumes) called for stringent laws to protect the cow and its progeny
in the interest of India’s rural economy.  This is anyway a Constitutional
requirement under Directive Principles of State Policy. Article 48 of the
Constitution says: “The State shall endeavour to organize agriculture and
animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular,
take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the
slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle”.   In 1958,
a 5-member Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court { (1959) SCR 629}
upheld Article 48 and the consequently held total ban on cow slaughter as a
reasonable restriction on Fundamental Rights of all Indians.

      When India fought the First War of Independence in 1857, and Bahadur
Shah ‘Zafar’ was installed as Emperor by the Hindus in Delhi for a brief
period,  his Hindu Prime Minister, on the Emperor’s Proclamation, made the
killing of cow a capital offence.  Earlier in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s
kingdom, the only crime that had capital punishment was cow slaughter.

       For a Hindu, the very appearance of a cow evokes a sense of piety.
See however the most reckless bus driver avoids the cow that squats in the
middle of the road. The cow is serene by temperament and herbivorous by
diet. It is multi-product animal. Apart from milk, cow dung known for its
anti-septic value, is still used as fuel in its dried caked form in most
Indian villages.  It is also used in compost manure and in the production of
electricity through eco-friendly gobar-gas. Thus, Mahatma Gandhi had
declared: “Cow protection is more important than even Swaraj”.

      The cow, according to Vedas provides the following four products for
human society :

   1. *Godugdha* (Cow milk):  As per Ayurveda, cow milk’s composition has
      fat, carbohydrate, minerals, calcium, Iron and Vitamin B, an
even a capacity
      for resistance of the body against radiation and regenerate brain cells.
      2. *Goghruta *(Cow Ghee): Best among all kinds of ghee. As per
      Ayurveda classics it is useful in various kind of systematic,
physical and
      mental disorders as well as it sustain the age for long time. When it is
      used in Yajna, it improves the oxygen level in the air around.
      3. *Gomutra* (Cow Urine): A total of 8 types of urine are used for
      medicinal purpose now a days.  Among those, Cow urine is held to be the
      best. Hence the Americans are busy patenting while we are busy sneering
      about it. Anti-cancer, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal property is
found in it.
      It is also having anti-oxidant and immuno modulator property,
which is very
      much useful for immune deficiency diseases which are increasing
now a day.
      In classics there are so  many references available where cow urine is
      mentioned as a drug of choice. Even Parsis of Zoroastrian religion follow
      this practice.

   Besides milk and dung, the ancient Hindu wisdom that cow’s urine has
medicinal properties and hence accessible at low cost to the rural poor, is
borne out by Patents granted in United States.

   Two US patents have been granted for cow urine distillate (US Pat. No.
6410059 & 6896907) for anti-micro-bial, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal,
anti-cancer properties, also it is having a lot of anti-exidants. Since it
has got immumomodulatory compounds in it, it is a very good bio-enhancer to
facilitate drug availability to high extent in our body.  Patent from China
is also granted to cow urine distillate as a DNA protector.

   One global patent has been granted for cow urine, neem and garlic as a
pest repellent, fungicidal and growth promontory properties for all
different crops (WHO 2004/087618A1) .

   Another US patent has been granted for strains obtained from Sahiwal cow
milk for plant growth promoter phytopathogenic fungi controlling activity,
abiotic stress tolerating capability, phosphatic solubilisation capability,
etc. (US patent No. 7097830 dated 29/8/06).

   Also CSIR has filed US patent for Amrit Pani (mixture of cow dung + cow
urine + jaggery) from NBRI Lucknow for soil health improvement properties.

   All the above claims had been made in Charaka Samhita, Sushrut, Vaghbhati
and Nighantu, Ratnakar, etc.

   The above examples very well prove the utility of cow dung and urine for
sustainable agriculture as well as for almost curing or giving relief in
many serious diseases like psoriasis, eczema, asthma, diabetes, blood
pressure, renal failures and cancer, etc.

   This confirms Vedic message: *Gomay Vasate Laxmi* i.e. cow dung is a
source of wealth, whereas in western culture dung and urine are considered
to be waste, even if their modern medical research has begun changing its
view.


   1. *Gomaya *(Cow Dung): Gomaya is considered equally valuable as Gau
      mutra and it is used to purify the environment. Cow dung has
radium and it
      checks the radiation effects.

      Furthermore, the common argument in the West for slaughtering cows is
no more uncontested.   Beef is not of high protein content as believed.  Any
dietician’s chart shows that beef, with 22 per cent protein, ranks far below
vegetable products like soyabeen (43), groundnut (31), pulses (24).
Moreover, excess intake of protein is not good as it only contributes to
obesity, a bane of modern civilization.  Moreover, to procure 1 kg of beef
(or for that matter any flesh) it takes 7 kg of crops and 7,000 kg. of
water.

       Thus protection of the cow thus makes good economic and ecological
sense. Swami Dayananda Saraswati, the scholar-sanyasi and Convenor of the
Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, a body of all prominent Hindu religious heads,
has argued that non-vegetarianism indirectly contributes heavily to green
house gases and other pollution.

      He quotes a report from the United Nations of the year 2006 that
reveals the surprising fact that “raising animals for meat as food generates
more green house gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined.”
Ten of billions of animals farmed for food, release gases such as methane,
nitrous oxide and carbon-di-oxide through their massive amounts of manure.
Animals such as cows and sheep, being ruminant, emit huge amount of methane
due to flatulence and burping. “The released methane”, the report says, “has
23 times the global warming potential of CO2”. It is alarming to note that
the livestock industry alone is responsible for 37% of human induced methane
emissions.  To make room for these animals to graze, the virgin forests are
cleared. The livestock industry also needs a vast stretches of land to raise
mono-crops to feed the animals. The CO2 that the trees and plants store
escapes back into the air when they are destroyed.

      Growing fodder for farmed animals implies heavy use of synthetic
fertilizers produced with fossil fuels. While this process emits a huge
amount of CO2 fertilizer itself releases nitrous oxide (3) – a green house
gas that is 296 times more potent than CO2. Alarming though these facts are,
Swamiji sees in them a reason for hope.  All that the people ever have to do
is to avoid red-meat eating. In the absence of demand for meat there is no
more need for breeding millions of animals for daily slaughter. And then
animals population would cease to be medicated or inseminated for continuous
breeding, thereby the population would be regulated

      A single individual by simply not consuming meat prevents the
equivalent of 1.5 tons CO2 emissions in a year. This is more than the one
ton of CO2 emissions prevented by switching from a large sedan to a small
car.  One needs to have an honest commitment to save the mother earth who
has been relentlessly patient and magnanimous since she began bearing life.
There are a number of reasons for one to be a vegetarian.  People given to
meat eating think that a pure vegetarian diet is optional. But now they have
no choice if they are alive to what is happening to this life-bearing
planet. There is no justification whatsoever for one to continue to be a
non-vegetarian knowing the devastating consequences of meat eating.

      As Swami Dayananda Saraswati has noted:

      “Promotion of vegetarianism does not require any legislation from the
State. It does require a change of heart on the part of meat eating
individuals anywhere on this planet. I cannot appeal to the tigers and
wolves. They are programmed to be what they are. Being endowed with freewill
only a human being can make a difference by exercising responsibly his or
her choice.”

If it is too much for one to switch to be a total vegetarian, then one needs
to give up at least red-meat eating.

      Cattle can be conveniently  reared today only in villages because
villages have open grazing lands and natural atmosphere and ponds, etc.,
which urban dwellings do not have.

      But as the erstwhile Sar Sanghchalak of RSS Sri Sudarshan has
observed at meeting of ‘Gobhakta’ industrialists in New Delhi recently, for
rural economic development *cow-based* industries should be set up.  An
example of this is of Dr. Shrikrishna Mittal who successfully made tiles out
of cow dung that could be used in rural housing for a long period. Of course
Gobar gas has already come to stay.

      Hence, a new fervour is necessary to create a *cow-renaissance* in the
nation.  As Bahadur Shah and Maharaja Ranjit Singh did, we should amend the
IPC to make cow slaughter as a capital offence as well as a ground for
arrest under the National Security Act, to give meaning and urgency to the
total ban on cow slaughter. It is constitutional and is Hindutva.
      The cow is thus a part of Hindutva, and we should defend it with all
our might.