[Reader-list] Bovines

[A. Mani]

Book Review
Name of the Book: The Myth of the Holy Cow
Author: D.N. Jha
Publisher: Navayana, New Dehi
Year: 2009
Pages: 207
ISBN: 978-8189059163
Price: Rs200
Reviewed by: Yoginder Sikand


'The central fact of Hinduism,' wrote MK Gandhi, 'is cow protection'. Gandhi
was not alone in making such a claim. Like him, most Hindu ideologues insist
on the centrality of the cow to Hinduism. For them, the cow is not just a
four-legged beast but, rather, the goddess Gau Mata, or even, for some, the
repository of all the millions of Hindu deities. Worship of the cow, so it
is argued, is a cardinal principal of Hinduism, along with vegetarianism.
The supposed holiness of the cow and the Hindu ban on beef-eating, Hindu
ideologues claim, go back all the way to the period of the Vedic Aryans. The
belief in the sanctity of the cow is routinely marshaled by right-wing
Hindus as a symbol to distinguish Hindus from others, particularly Muslims,
who are treated with disdain on account of their supposed penchant for beef
and their alleged constant readiness to slaughter 'the mother cow'. In this
way, the myth of the holy cow serves as a powerful tool to create and
consolidate a powerful sense of Hindu communal identity transcending
caste-class divides, which is premised on relentless hostility to the
beef-eating Muslim 'other'.

Not surprisingly, then, Indian history is littered with the memory of scores
of deadly communal riots between Muslims and Hindus in the name protecting
the cow and its alleged sanctity, in which thousands of people have lost
their precious lives. Numerous 'upper' caste Hindu revivalists, from the
medieval period onwards, sought to stir up Hindu sentiment against Muslims
in the name of 'protecting Brahmins and cows'. Reflecting Hindu pro-cow
sentiment, the Indian Constitution made it incumbent on the Indian state to
'take steps for…prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves', a demand
which right-wing Hindu parties keep raising from time to time, especially
when  elections are just round the corner, this being a potent vote-catching
gimmick.

This book, a product of intense scholarly research by one of India's leading
historians, reveals that the notion of the cow as a Hindu deity and of the
ban on eating beef as being intrinsic to what, for want of a better term, is
called 'Hinduism', especially to the early Vedic tradition, is completely
fallacious. So, too, it argues, is the belief that beef-eating became a
practice in India only with the coming of the Muslims and Islam, a belief,
the author indicates, which is deployed by contemporary proponents of the
myth of the divinity of the cow to demonise Muslims and their faith.  Based
on a close and incisive analysis of early Brahminical, Jain and Buddhist
scriptures, DN Jha, former Professor of History at Delhi University and
one-time General President of the Indian History Congress, argues that the
early Hindus, and most definitely the Rig Vedic Aryans, who are regarded as
votaries of supposedly 'pure Hinduism', were not just non-vegetarians but,
in fact, were voracious beef-eaters. Moreover, they routinely killed cows,
on a massive scale, in sacrificial rituals in the hope of pleasing their
various gods.

The first available textual evidence of cow-slaughter and beef-eating as
being an integral part of the Indo-Aryan culinary tradition is present, Jhan
informs us, in none less than the Vedas, which modern Hindus regard as
containing the essence of 'Hinduism'. The Vedic religion, Jha writes, was
characterized by elaborate sacrifices, conducted in the hope of winning the
pleasure of a range of tribal Aryan gods. Various types of food offered to
these gods in the course of these sacrifices were supposed to be of their
liking, and were also eaten by those who performed the sacrifices, including
and especially the Brahmin priests. Many of these Vedic sacrifices entailed
slaughter of animals on an enormous scale, including, Jha reveals, of cows.

The centrality of animal, including cow, sacrifice in the religion of the
Vedic Aryans must be seen in the context of the economic structure of their
society, Jhan explains. The Aryans, who invaded India in the middle of the
second millennium BC, were nomadic pastoralists, their chief form of wealth
being cattle. Even prior to their invasions, the Aryans had practiced cow
sacrifice, and this was continued after they settled in the country. Their
tribal gods were, as the Rig Veda describes them, particularly fond of meat,
and a whole range of animals, including cows, were sacrificed to please them
and to feed the Brahmin priests, so Jha tells us.

Jha provides ample evidence to back his claim. The Rig Veda frequently
refers to cooking of ox meat to offer the gods, especially the supposedly
greatest of them all, Indra, who is invoked as the destroyer of the forts of
the enemies of the invading Aryans—the autochthonous Indian people. The
Rig Veda has Indra as announcing, 'They cook for me 15 plus 20 oxen', while
elsewhere in the same book he is said to have eaten the flesh of a bull
flesh or a hundred buffaloes. Similarly, the Rig Veda depicts Agni, second
in importance to Indra among the Aryan gods, as roasting a thousand
buffaloes, and he is described as 'one whose food is the ox and the barren
cow'. A third key Rig Vedic god, Soma, is also recorded as also requiring
bloody sacrifice of animals, including cattle.

The later Vedic texts, Jha adds, provide further details of these gory
animal sacrifices that formed the core of the Aryan tribal religion,
convincingly proving that non-vegetarianism, venerating the cow and
proscribing the eating of beef were wholly alien to the formative period of
what is today called 'Hinduism'. These animal sacrifices, geared to
providing Brahmins with an enormous and free supply of meat, were devised by
the priests in such a way as to convince those who performed them that this
was a means to please the blood-thirsty Aryan gods. Thus, the texts speak of
different types of cows to be sacrificed to different gods, each god
supposedly having his own favourite sort: a bull is to be sacrificed to
Indra, a dappled cow to the Maruts, a copper-colored cow to the Asvins, and
so on. In most public sacrifices (such as the asvamedha, gomedha, rajasuya
and vajapeya), the flesh of animals, especially the cow, ox and bull, was
required, so the scriptures laid down. The agnyadheya sacrifice required a
cow to be killed and the priest to put four dishfuls of rice on the hide of
a bull. In the asvamedha, the most important Vedic sacrifice, more than 600
animals and birds were killed, and this display of gore ended with sacrifice
of 21 sterile cows. The gavamayana sacrifice involved the sacrifice of three
barren cows offered to Mitravaruna and other deities, while in the
grhamedha, a lavish feast, an unspecified number of cows were killed. The
gosava or sacrifice of a cow was also an important component of the rajasuya
and vajapeya sacrifices and the agnistoma ritual. An element in the
pancasaradiyasava ritual was the immolation of seventeen dwarf heifers aged
under three years. In the sulagava sacrifice, an ox was killed to please
Rudra, its tail and skin thrown into the fire and its blood poured on the
grass for the snakes.

Jha argues that beef was considered such a choice dish by the early Aryans,
forefathers of today's Hindus, that it was generally offered to special
guests. A special rite, mentioned in the Vedic texts, called arghya or
madhuparka, which entailed killing a cow, was devised in order to greet
honoured guests. The Rig Veda also indicates that cows were slain for other
festive occasions like marriage.  In the Vedic period, Jha tells us,
'cattle, in fact, seem to have been killed even on what would appear to many
of us to have been flimsy grounds.' For instance, some texts recommended
that a person who desired a learned son with a long life should eat a stew
of meat, including beef if he so chose, along with rice and ghee.

Cow slaughter was also an integral part of the Vedic Aryan cult of the dead,
Jha explains. One Rig Vedic passage refers to the use of skin and the fat of
a cow to cover the dead body, and the Atharva Veda seems to speak of a bull
being burnt along with the dead to supposedly rise with in the next world.
The Gryhasutras, Brahminical texts about domestic rituals, mention the
slaying of cattle when a death occurs and of distributing different limbs of
the animal on those of the corpse. The rules of sraddha, a ritual for the
dead, mention that the ancestral spirits or pitrs had to be well-fed with
beef, and so, besides other animals, cows and bulls were slain in the
sraddha ceremonies. Apparently, different types of animals, if killed, were
believed to please the spirits for different periods of time, but, Jha
notes, their 'preference for beef was generally unquestioned […] It was
only in the absence of meat that vegetables could be offered to the pitrs.'

Jha indicates that the Vedic texts themselves clearly indicate that the cow
was definitely not seen as sacred in both the Vedic period, and that beef
eating was common, including and especially among the Brahmins. At the same
time, however, the cow, being a symbol of wealth in a pastoral economy,
received praise in some texts, and it is this, Jha believes, that might have
provided a basis for the later development of the myth of the holy cow,
although it was certainly not considered holy in the Vedic period. Yet, even
within the Vedas, he writes, there is evidence of a gradual shift in
attitudes towards the cow, with the notion that a cow owned by a Brahmin
beginning to acquire a degree of inviolability, and with the cow gradually
becoming an ideally preferred form of sacrificial fee or dakshina to the
Brahmin priest. The post-Vedic texts began to speak of the dire consequences
one would face if one injured or stole a cow owned by a Brahmin as well as
the supposed benefits one would receive if one donated a cow to a
Brahmin—an incentive obviously geared to promote the fortunes of the
priestly caste. Yet, Jha insists, this gradually evolving notion of a
special importance attached to a Brahmin's cow cannot be used to argue that
Vedic cow was sacred. Indeed, he points out archaeological evidence from
various Vedic period sites indicate the slaughter of cows and thus the
widespread eating of beef.

Jha opines that the Vedic texts are characterized by a lack of consistency
on the issue of the cow. While the Rig Veda unambiguously sanctions cow
slaughter for a range of sacrifices, later Vedic texts provide indications
of efforts to find substitutes for ritual cattle sacrifice, in the form of
offering praise, animal effigies or a fuel stick instead. This tendency
towards ritual substitution gained ground from the later Vedic period
onwards, and, Jha writes, should be seen against the background of the
gradual weakening of Vedic pastoralism, which was giving way to settled
agriculture wherein cattle were prized for their usefulness in agricultural
operations. This tendency appears in the Upanisads, some of which questioned
the efficacy of animal sacrifice, although some of them continued to approve
the sacrificial cult. The idea of ritual sacrifice as futile culminated much
later in the doctrine of ahimsa, which is the defining trait of Buddhism and
Jainism, both of which assertively challenged the worth of the Vedic
religion based on animal sacrifice.

Yet, Jha writes, despite this growing stress on non-violence, the ritual and
random killing of animals for sacrifice and food continued to enjoy
Brahminical and dharmashastric approval, with the Brahminical texts of the
post-Mauryan period abounding in contradictions on the issue of meat-eating
and killing cows. Thus, the Manusmriti, considered by orthodox Brahmins as
the ideal code of personal and social life, the Bible of Brahminism as it
were, mentions that porcupines, hedgehogs, iguanas, rhinos, turtles, fish,
hares and various domestic animals may be eaten, and also lays down that
eating meat on sacrificial occasions is a divine rule but that on other
occasions it is demonic. Hence, it ordains, it is not wrong to eat meat
while honoring the gods and guests. Intriguingly, Manu exempts the camel
from being killed for food, but not the cow. Manu gives lip-sympathy to the
doctrine of ahimsa, probably to preempt Buddhist criticism, but also claims
that killing animals on ritual occasions is actually 'non-killing', and
injuring them, as enjoined by the Vedas, is actually 'non-injury'. Further
justifying the Vedic practice of animal sacrifice, he argues that cattle and
birds killed in sacrifices attain higher levels of existence, adding that
the so-called 'twice-born' man who knows true meaning of Veda and injures
animals for the purposes of hospitality and sacrificing to the gods and
ancestors' spirits causes himself and the animal he slays to go to heaven.
If he refuses to eat the consecrated meat, Manu threatens, he will be reborn
as a beast for twenty-one existences. He claims that the person who daily
devours the animals which are believed to be destined to be his food commits
no sin, for the Creator Himself has created both. In this way, Manu removes
all restrictions on meat-eating and gives full freedom to all who like to
eat it, while rhetorically extolling ahimsa. Jha also notes that Manu
permits meat-eating on certain specific ritual occasions like madhuparka and
sraddha, on which killing cows was a Vedic practice. Hence, he argues, 'one
may not be far from the truth if one interprets Manu's injunctions as a
justification for ritual cattle slaughter and beef eating […]'

Yajnavalka, another key dharmasastric scholar, echoes Manu's arguments,
clearly indicating that eating meat, even beef, was not yet a taboo at this
time. He mentions a number of animals, like deer, sheep, goats, boar, rhinos
and partridges, whose meat, he claims, satisfies the spirits of the
ancestors, adding that a student, king, teacher, friend and son-in-law
should be offered arghya and a priest should be offered madhuparka on all
ritual occasions (both of which, according to Vedic practice, entail
cow-killing), and that a learned Brahmin should be welcomed with a big ox or
goat and delicious food.



Despite vague references to ahimsa, the Upanisads, Jha points out, do not
mention killing of kine as a sin, and it was only in the later sutras and
sastras that it came to be considered so. Even then, Jha writes, it was
regarded as a minor sin or upapataka by most Brahminical law-givers. While,
from Manu on, the Brahminical lawgivers are almost unanimous in describing
cow killing as a minor sin, they do not lay down a uniform penalty for it.
Thus, some consider the appropriate punishment to be feeding Brahmins, while
others recommend or fasting for a certain period, shaving one's head,
wearing cow-hide as an upper garment and lying down in a cow-pen. If the cow
belonged to a Brahmin, the sin was considered more serious than if it was a
non-Brahmin's, but even here, Jha says, the killing of the cow was not seen
as a major sin. Some Brahminical law-givers of this period saw it as no more
than a minor indecorous act, which explains why, for example, Atri equates
beef-eating with cleaning one's teeth with one's fingers and eating only
salt.

Eating meat is also amply testified to in the key Hindu epics, the
Mahabharata and the Ramayana, which were finally redacted in the
post-Buddhist period, and were probably written with the purpose of
defeating Buddhism. Jha writes that the Mahabharata gives ample evidence
that non-vegetarianism was the norm, rather than the exception, for many.
Thus, Yudhishtra, who is said to abhor violence, regularly hunts deer to
feed his brothers, their shared wife Draupadi and the Brahmins living in the
forest. In the asvamedha sacrifice that he arranges, a number of animals,
including bulls, are killed. Draupadi offers Jayadratha and his companions a
meal of fifty deer, promising that Yudhishtra would also provide them with
black antelope, spotted antelope, venison, fawn, rabbit, deer, boar, buffalo
and several more species. The Mahabharata mentions that two thousand cows
were slaughtered every day in kitchen of king Rantideva, who achieved
unrivalled fame by distributing beef with food-grains to Brahmins. In the
Anusasanaparvan of the Mahabharata, Narad declares that one should present
meat, among other things, to  Brahmins, and Bhishma recommends that various
foods, including beef, fish, mutton, rabbit, goat, boar, fowl, venison, and
the meat of buffaloes, rhinos and red-skinned goats, should be offered to
the departed ancestral spirits.

Similarly, Jha notes, Valmiki's Ramayana contains numerous references to
killing animals for sacrifice and food. Ram's father Dasrath, desirous of
progeny, performs a sacrifice in which the 'sages' bring forth several
animals, including horses, snakes and aquatic animals, permitted by the
sastras to be killed in rituals. In the sacrifice, some 300 animals were
tied to the sacrificial poles, obviously for ritual slaughter. Valmiki
depicts Ram and Laxman as killing game for consumption and sacrifice, and
portrays Sita as promising the river Ganga that she would offer it rice
cooked with meat and thousands of jars of liquor on her safe return with her
husband. Sita's love for deer meat makes Ram chase and kill Marica, who is
disguised as a golden deer, and Ram gives the pregnant Sita different kinds
of wine while his servants serve them with meat and fruit. Bharadvaj regales
Bharat's troops with meat and wine and, Jha notes, even slaughters a 'fatted
calf' to welcome Ram.

Jha also surveys a range of classical Hindu medical texts and other secular
literature to show the long persistence of a non-vegetarian culinary
tradition, including beef-eating. Thus, Caraka, while extolling ahimsa,
recommends the therapeutic use of meat, including beef gravy for
intermittent fevers. Similarly, Susruta regards beef as a cure in various
diseases and even describes it as 'holy'. The celebrated Meghaduta by
Kalidasa, alluding to a legend in the Mahabharata, has Yaksa asking the
cloud-messenger to show respect to Rantideva, who sacrificed numerous cows
whose blood flew in the form of river. Bhavabhuti's Mahaviracarita, in
dealing with Ram's early life, describes a scene wherein Vasistha requests
the angry Parasurama to accept king Janaka's hospitality, which includes the
killing of a heifer. In another play, called Uttararamacarita, Vasistha is
depicted as feasting on a 'poor tawny calf' in Valmiki's hermitage, and one
of the latter's disciples declares that 'according to the holy law it is the
duty of a householder to offer a heifer or a bull or a goat to a srotriya
guest'.

Yet, Jha goes on, by the middle of the first millennium AD the Brahminical
texts begin to show disapproval of cow killing, leading finally to a ban,
with medieval Brahminical jurists now declaring that a range of earlier
customs prevalent in the Vedic period, including cow slaughter, should be
given up in the kali age. Thus, by this time, the cow, which formed a
central item in the Vedic culinary and religious tradition, was transformed
into a sacred object, and new Brahminical scriptures were penned declaring
cow-killers as antyajas or untouchables and as destined to hell.  Even then,
Jha notes, the texts that forbid cow slaughter recognize it as an earlier
practice, and some dissenting voices continue to insist that cow-slaughter
and beef-eating are still permissible. Thus, for example, the thirteenth
century Narasimha holds it obligatory to eat beef at the madhuparka
ceremony. Further, despite the ban on it during kali yuga, cow-slaughter was
not considered serious enough to be classed among the major sins, which
including slaying a Brahmin, drinking liquor, and engaging in sexual
intercourse with the wife of one's teacher.

Jha traces the Hindu ban on killing cows in this period to the fact that the
transformation in the economy, leading to settled agriculture based on
massive land grants to the Brahmins, for whom cattle were now required in
large numbers for a range of agricultural operations. The evolution, in this
period, of the belief in the sanctity of the cow drew on notions contained
in the early Aryan texts about the supposed purificatory role of the cow and
its products at the same that these texts also recommended cow-sacrifices.
Yet, the later dharmasastras continue to provide evidence to confirm that
despite the evolution of belief in the supposed purificatory role of the cow
and its products, it was still not considered a deity that ought not to be
killed. This is evidenced from the fact of contradictory reports in the
shastras about the cow. Thus, Manu states that food smelt by a cow has to be
purified by putting earth on it. Yajnavalka contends that food smelt by cow
has to be purified, and insists that mouths of horses and goats are pure but
not the cow's. Angirasa claims that bronze vessels smelt by cow or touched
by a crow and those in which a Shudra has eaten are to be purified by
rubbing them with ashes for ten days, as do Parasara and Vyasya.
Vijnanesvara and Mita Misra insist that all eatables smelt by cow need to be
purified. There is, Jha remarks, no Brahminical lawgiver who describes the
mouth of the cow as pure. (The notion of the supposed impurity of the mouth
of the cow, Jha tells us, developed from the post-Vedic period onwards, and
is repeated in many the later Brahminical scriptures, echoing the Puranic
legend about Vishnu, who cursed the cow Kamadhenu so that her mouth should
be impure and her tail holy forever.) Thus, Jha shows, even while belief in
the supposed purity of the products of a cow evolved, it went along with
belief in the impurity of the animal's mouth, thus revealing the deeply
contradictory position of the overall Brahminical tradition with regard to
the animal.

Jha's masterly survey of the evolution of the myth of the Hindu holy cow
clearly indicates the central role it has played over the centuries in
fortifying Brahminical supremacy and ritualism. It also indicates the actual
nature of the tribal Aryan religion, which, as Jha clearly shows, was based
on killing of animals on a vast scale in order to appease tribal deities and
was geared to serve the interests of the Brahmins, an image that contrasts
sharply with that projected by Brahminical scholars for whom the Vedas are
the epitome of divine wisdom. By proving, from the Brahminical texts
themselves, that non-vegetarianism and beef-eating were, far from being
considered anathema, central to the Aryan religious tradition, Jha
brilliantly exposes the politics that have been played—and continue to
be—in the name of the cow.

That said, Jha does not provide a detailed explanation as to why the
Brahmins raised the cow, from a favourite food item and object of ritual
sacrifice to the status of a deity, beyond cursorily mentioning the
transformation of the Aryan economy and the influence of the Buddhist and
Jain ahimsa doctrine. This issue is, however, dealt with in an article which
is appended to the book, penned by Babasaheb Ambedkar, one of the foremost
scholars of Brahminism in recent times. The article is a long excerpt from
Ambedkar's classic work The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became
Untouchables?

Ambedkar, echoing Jha, remarks that it is clear that the Rig Vedic and even
later Aryans did eat beef. He quotes the Taittiriya Brahmana, a key
early-period Brahminical text, as even specifying the types of cows and oxen
to be sacrificed to different deities (a dwarf ox to Vishnu, a drooping
horned bull with a blaze on forehead to Indra; a black cow to Pushan; and a
red cow to Rudra). The same text mentions the panchasaradiya seva sacrifice
that entailed the immolation of seventeen five-year old hump-less dwarf
bulls and the same number of dwarf heifers under 3 years of age. Besides for
ritual purposes, cows were also regularly killed for feeding guests. So
extensive was this practice, Ambedkar remarks, that the guest was called
go-ghna or 'the killer of the cow'

Based on ample evidence in the early Brahminical scriptures, Ambedkar
maintains that 'there was a time when the Brahmins were the greatest
beef-eaters'. 'In a period overridden by ritualism', he continues, 'there
was hardly a day on which there was no cow sacrifice to which the Brahmin
was not invited by some non-Brahmin. For the Brahmin every day was a
beef-steak day. The Brahmins were therefore the greatest beef-eaters.' The
yajna of the Brahmins, Ambedkar reveals, 'was nothing but the killing of
innocent animals carried on in the name of religion with pomp and ceremony
with an attempt to enshroud it in mystery with a view to conceal their
appetite for beef'. But even more, Ambedkar contends, the Brahmins 'were not
merely beef-eaters but they were also butchers'.

Why, then, did the Brahmins give up eating beef, and, instead, begin
worshipping an animal that was once among their favourite foods and of their
gods as well? Ambedkar contends that this was simply a matter of strategy in
order to defeat their most powerful opponents, the Buddhists. Given that
over time the majority of the non-Brahmins had turned Buddhist, the Brahmins
were faced with a grave challenge, for their power rested on the utter
subjugation of the former in the name of religion. With many kings adopting
Buddhism, the Brahmins also lost patronage in the royal courts. Because
Buddhism had made such a deep impression on the non-Brahmins, it was
impossible for the Brahmins to counter it directly. Accordingly, they
deliberately adopted certain Buddhist practices which the non-Brahmins
deeply cherished, in a bid, as it were, to out-Buddhisize the Buddhists.
Thus, for instance, in a major departure from Vedic tradition, they began
building temples, wherein they installed images of various Hindu gods, with
the intention of attracting Buddhists, who prayed in temples that hosted
massive Buddha statues.

The Buddha had completely rejected the Brahminical religion, of which
animal, including cow, sacrifice, formed a central core. The Buddhist
objection to cow sacrifice had, Ambedkar writes, taken a strong hold among
the masses, especially since they were now an agricultural people and for
them the cow was a very useful animal. It is likely that the Buddhists'
relentless opposition to the Vedic animal sacrifices (besides their
opposition to Brahminical hegemony) was one of the major attractions that
Buddhism provided for the non-Brahmin majority. Such sacrifices, geared to
promote the interests of the Brahmins, were probably a major financial
burden on the non-Brahmins. The Brahmins had, so Ambedkar says, probably
'come to be hated as the killer of cows', and so they sought to outsmart the
Buddhists by completely transforming their religion in order to bring the
Buddhist majority into the Brahminical fold and thereby restore the
Brahmins' lost power.

This entailed giving up the sacrifice of the cow, 'suspending or
abrogating,' Ambedkar argues, 'a requirement of their Vedic religion in
order to overcome the supremacy of the Buddhist Bhikkus.' The object of the
Brahmins in giving up beef and taking to vegetarianism, Ambedkar explains,
was to snatch away from the Buddhist Bhikkus the supremacy they had acquired
in the eyes of the masses due to their opposition to animal sacrifice, which
was the essence of the Vedic religion. But, contrary to common perception,
the Bhikkus were not strict vegetarians, and so the doctrine of strict
vegetarianism devised at this stage by the Brahmins can be explained,
Ambedkar argues, on the grounds that by doing so the Brahmins sought to
appear to be even more wedded to ahimsa than the Buddhists, and thus, as it
were, on a higher pedestal than the Bhikkus, so as to draw the masses back
to the Brahminical fold. The Hindu ban on beef-eating, Ambedkar concludes,
is thus a result of the historical struggle between Brahminism and Buddhism
and a means by which the Brahmins successfully sought to reimpose their
hegemony.

This fascinating book simply cannot afford to be missed by scholars of
Hinduism and Indian politics. By bringing to light the reality of the myth
of the holy cow, it clearly indicates the consistent history of the
manipulation of a key religious symbol for the purpose of promoting
Brahminical domination. Given the salience of the cow in Indian politics,
the animal being continued to be deployed by right-wing chauvinist Hindu
groups in order to stir hatred and violence against Muslims (and others,
too, such as Dalits), the contemporary relevance of this historical survey
is obvious. It certainly deserves to be translated into a range of Indian
languages, possibly in the form of pamphlets summarizing its contents, in
order to reach a wider readership.

_______________________________________________________________________

Best

A. Mani



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