Cow Quote #11

[Guest guest]

Festival Lectures/Govardhana Puja Lecture-New York Nov.4 1966

 

Indra-y€ga-ktodyam€n. According to Vedic system, there are different types

of sacrifices to offer respect and obeisances to the demigods. Just like the

sun is supplying light, the moon is supplying moonshine. Similarly, Indra is

supplying the cloud. Similarly, there are different demigods. And in the

Bhagavad-g…t€, devan ya yajayant… deva-bhavan—these things are described. In

the Vedic literature it is prescribed that “You should satisfy these

demigods by sacrifice, deva-yajan.”

 

So in the village of that Vnd€vana, the father of KŠa, foster father of

KŠa, Nanda Mah€r€ja and his associates, they were yearly performing the

Indra-yajña. Because they were agriculturists, they depended on rain,

sufficient rains. And he had many cows. Nanda Mah€r€ja was a farm man. He is

agriculture and cows. The mercantile people, the vaiya community, they are

recommended three things: ki-go-raksya-v€Šijyam [bg. 18.44]. Ki means

agriculture, and go-rakya means cow protection, and v€Šijyam means trade.

So Nanda Mah€r€ja belonged to the vaiya community. So he was well-to-do

man, very rich man, and he had 900,000’s of cows. 900,000 of cows he was

protecting. Formerly, according to Vedic civilization, a man was considered

to be rich man in proportion of his stock of grains and livestock, cows.

That’s all. Dh€nyena dhanav€n. A man was considered to be rich man if he has

sufficient quantity of grains in his possession. Similarly, if one has

sufficient number of cows in his possession, he was considered rich man. Not

that bank balance. There was no such bank, neither this paper money. They

actually possessing the foodstuff and milk. And actually this is economic

solution. If you have got sufficient milk, then you can make so many nice

nutritious, full of vitamin values preparation and grains. There is no

question of economic starvation if you have got simply grains and cows. So

that was the standard of economic solution in days yore.

 

So they were preparing just to satisfy the demigod Indra, because he was

supposed to... Not supposed. Actually he supplies rains sufficiently.

Without rains you cannot have successful agriculture. So they were preparing

that sacrifice. So this preparation was being observed by KŠa and

Balar€ma.