[Reader-list] Bovines

[Rajkamal Goswami]

is this the book or just the review? So looong!

On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 9:40 PM, A. Mani <a.mani.cms at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>
>
>
> --
> A. Mani
> CU, ASL, CLC,  AMS, CMS
> http://www.logicamani.co.cc
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Rajkamal