He who lives by selling milk will have to sink in hell - Bhismadeva

[Guest guest]

mark john wrote:

 

>Dear conference,

>

>Jai Radhe

>

>I was just doing some light reason, so I took up the Krsna book again. Chapter

>5, p58 of my book:

>

>"It is very important to note in this connection how wealthy the inhabitants

of

>Vrndavana were simply by raising cows. All the cowherd men belonged to the

>vaisya community, and their business was to protect the cows and cultivate

>crops. By their dress and ornaments, and by their behaviour, it apears that

>although they were in a small village, they still were rich in material

>possessions. They possessed such an abundance of various kinds of milk

products

>that they were throwing butter lavishly on each other's bodies without

>restriction. Their wealth was in milk, yogurt, clarified butter and many other

>milk products, and by trading their agricultiral products, they were rich in

>various kinds of jewelry, ornaments and costly dresses. Not only did they

>possess all these things, but they could give them away in charity, as did

>Nanda Maharaj."

>

>If we compare this to HKDD's famous article quoting Bhismadeva saying that he

>who sells milk will go to hell, it can obviously be seen that the flowery

words

>of the Vedas have confusing elements to them.

>

It feels like we have already discussed this point dozens of times.

However, for the benefit of those who have just joined this conference,

and for the benefit of those who can't quite remember the factors to

this discussion, I'll review a couple of points.

 

First of all, it's important to get Bhismadeva's exact quote from the

Mahabharata.

 

*******************

 

The quote is NOT:

 

He who sells milk will go to hell.

 

**************************

The quote IS:

 

He who LIVES BY SELLING MILK will have to sink in hell.

 

*************************

 

There is a crucial distinction here.

 

To sell milk, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Srimati Radharani

sold milk. So selling milk, in and of itself, is in no way a sin.

 

The problem comes when a person relies on the sale of milk as their

primary livelihood. The problem comes when milk is developed as a

business, and the main purpose of having cows is to sell their milk.

 

In the capitalist context, such a set up forces the cowherd to compete

will all the other cowherds to market his product. The person with the

lowest price wins the largest market, and generally forces the others

out of business. Practically speaking, the person with the lowest price

is the one who kills (or otherwise gets rid of) all the animals which do

not produce milk. Time and time and time again, we have seen -- even

within ISKCON -- that places where the focus is on the production of

milk, cows are treated poorly -- and especially the bull calves are at

great risk.

 

This is why, even at ISKCON Vrndavana, under the leadership of His

Holiness Gopal Krsna Maharaja in the late 1980s and possibly early

1990s, dozens of bull calves were missing from the herd. They did not

produce marketable milk, so they were "gotten rid of" one way or another.

 

Conclusion: Breeding cows for the main purpose of selling their milk

generally results in neglect and even violence to the cows who are being

thus exploited -- especially it almost always results in harm to Dharma

the Bull, the Personality of Religion -- because the commercial cowherd

does not have time or funds to properly develop ox power -- which is an

essential feature of true cow protection.

 

********************

 

SELLING THE EXCESS

 

Selling the surplus is a completely different concept than breeding cows

for the specific purpose of producing milk.

 

Here's the ideal model. A cowherd family needs some oxen to plow, grind

grains and provide local transport of heavy items. It breeds a couple

cows to produce some bull calves. However, by breeding the cows, milk

is produced. The cowherd family has more than enough to consume

themselves and donate to the temple. Thus they sell the extra products

to others.

 

This is kind of model cannot be a commercial business. The family needs

only so many oxen to work for it. Thus, they are not providing the

constant quantity of milk needed for a commercial dairy business. Nor

is this a capital-intensive business. It is a small-scale situation.

 

Dozens of times when speaking of milk, Srila Prabhupada uses the phrase

"if there is excess." So this is what he means: First of all the

family provides it's own needs, then if there is excess it sells that.

 

In the context of a small community, ideally, different families would

breed their cows at different times -- so there would always be one

family whose cow produced sufficient milk to sell (or trade) to others.

 

BEEF BREEDS VS DAIRY BREEDS

 

Here in New England where many people still work the oxen (usually as a

hobby), it is very common to see people train the calves of beef cows,

to use as working oxen.

 

Such a model does not fit ideally with a wholistic model of cow

protection. If it were used on a Hare Krsna farm, for example, it would

mean that one breed of animals (beef cows) is used to produce working

oxen, and another breed of cows (dairy cows) is used to produce milk.

This produces useless beef cows and useless dairy bulls -- who are

expensive to maintain and likely to be neglected or eventually killed.

 

The ideal means is for the cowherd family to select dairy cows who can

produce good working animals. Thus, they need to give careful thought

to the whole process before they start out.

 

NOTE: This is not to be taken as a criticism of several of ISKCON's cow

protection projects who do train beef cows as working oxen. That is a

separate matter. In general, what happens is that someone will donate

an animal which happens to be a beef cow (or bull actually). Then the

project trains the animal to work. This is more like an excercise in

compassion and making the best of a bad bargain. Because they are on

the receiving end of a charitable project they do not always have the

luxury of selecting one breed or another. But ideally, the small herd

of a cowherd family would not include any beef cows.

 

It should be remembered that the beef cows are not natural cows. They

are genetic mutations which did not exist before the Industrial

Revolution in the 1800s. At the time of the industrial revolution,

people began to have more money, but less time to prepare food.

Especially, the women and children were taken from the home and put in

factories to produce cloth. There was no time to prepare food. So meat

eating became more widespread. At that time, the beef breeds were

developed, specifically to provide meat for the working masses, and

especially their prospering factory owners.

 

>I would find it most enlightening to know which side of the fence is the

>conference on, as for me it is quite obvious that a niche market in milk and

>milk products from protected cows is quite obviously the right choice. And if

>it is the right choice, why are the devotees not doing it like I see on

>mothercow.org and protectionfarms.org ?

>

Related to our discussion above, Mother Cow does not protect its bull

calves. It palms them off on a Jain goshalla, where they are forever

forgotten. For a more complete discussion of this topic please see my

Chakra article "Mother Cow Report Card."

http://www.chakra.org/living/SimpApr29_04.html

 

>

>I see a dilema, that has probably been talked about a lot on the conference,

>but I certainly see no reason why we do not have farms with protected cows

>springing up all over the world as people are much more likely these days to

>actually pay a market price, if there is one.

>

Once again, milk from a *mature* protected herd of cows, based on my

actual bookkeeping, is $10.00 per gallon. Do you think you will find

many customers at this price? I don't think you will.

 

BOTTOM LINE: Breeding cows with the goal of selling their milk results

in neglect and violence to the cows, especially the bull calves. That

is the litmus test of any cow protection program: Are the bull calves

being nicely maintained and being carefully trained to work. If not,

you have only a 50% cow protection program.

 

But, if a family breeds cows to produce the oxen it needs for farm work

and local transport, and then finds that it has more milk than it can

consume, Srila Prabhupada approved that they could sell the excess milk.

 

your servant,

 

Hare Krsna dasi

 

>Does anyone actually know the

>market price for products from a herd of protected cows?

>

>Yours in sincerity,

>

>Gopananda dasa

>

>

>

>

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