A query.

[Guest guest]

> If I gift a cow to a person or goshalla, on agreement (agreement being:

> this is your cow, it belongs to you and all it's by-products, and you

> promise to protect and maintain for life. And if for some reason something

> happens to that cow then you accept full responsibility for the Karma) and

> I know that party has a reputation for protecting cows, (which our ICC

> subcommittee is now discussing) is the calf of that cow mine or my

> responsibility?.

>

> Some say it is not yours because the cow is gifted and therefor the cow is

> not yours and the calf is not yours. Some say that it is not yours, but

> it is your responsibility, because you gifted the cow. Even though you

> don't own the cow?. Others would say that you are just trying to avoid the

> responsibility through word jugglery.

 

If the cow is actually gifted, then it belongs to the recipient of the gift,

in full, and the further generations are not the business of the giver.

However, if the recipient is not a worthy recipient then that is a fault in

the giver, for which the giver has to accept the consequences. And the

consequences of giving a cow to an unworthy person are certainly very

serious. Some of you have copies of a very nice book that gives all sorts of

sastric quotes about cows and cow protection. I would guess these things are

described therein.

 

The main problems of the present age are: 1) there are hardly any proper

recipients of gifts of cows; and 2) due to our selfish mentality we

generally only think of gifting a cow when the cow is a burden on us. The

proper mentality is that a cow is always an asset and to gift a cow means to

show honor to a qualified recipient.

 

Your servant, Bhaktarupa Das