[Advaita-l] Gosamrakshanam

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

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> Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:21:38 -0800
> From: krismanian at gmail.com
> To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
> Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Gosamrakshanam
>
> >Hare Krishna. Sankara Mutts are well known for protecting cows. I would
> like
> >to know references to cow protection in sruti, smrti and works of advaita
> >acharyas please. This is for a project to launch ahimsa milk in London and
> >Chennai. Any help is much appreciated
>
> "ahimsa milk" is a myth in this day and age. A Cow is impregnated solely for
> producing milk for human consumption and is fed all kinds of stuff to make
> milk production higher and higer like a machine. It happens in India as well
> as the rest of the world.

 
In this connection, see the following article by Sri Satish Karandikar,
a resident of New Jersey, USA.
 
http://www.svbf.org/journal/vol11/GoVegan.pdf
http://www.svbf.org/svbf_journal.php
 
In a general sense, however, I would caution against blanket condemnation
of all such ventures as described above. The domestication of the cow was
historically meant only to serve human purposes, but in the contemporary,
highly industrialized society that we live in, we have moved away from 
all standards of humane treatment of cattle. If you live in a city and are
buying milk from a supermarket, yes, you are contributing to the cycle of
himsA. But there are quite a few projects around the world, which have
been designed to be sanctuaries for cows and other domesticated animals.
You could always make a conscious decision only to use milk obtained with
the least amount of himsA. 
 
Regards,
Vidyasankar