Gomatha

[Guest guest]

It is not my intention to post anything that is beyond the scope of this

list. I sincerely believe this subject is part of our dharma that no one

can ignore.

 

Anbu

 

Cow as a Sacred Asset of the Nation

Subramanian Swamy, 12 Nov. 2009 India has 150 million cows today,

giving an average of less than 200 litres of milk per year. If they could be

fed and looked after, then these divine animals can give an average of

11,000 litres of milk as the Israeli cows do. That could provide milk for

the whole world. The milk we produce today is the cheapest in the world.

With enhanced production by raising the productivity of milch cows we can

become the world’s largest exporter of milk and India’s biggest foreign

exchange earner.

 

Yet our West influenced intellectuals and mentally dominated by

foreign idiom, sneer at the mention of the cow, leave alone speaking about

the cow as an asset to the nation. But we know that these intellectuals

first sneered at yoga, now it is a fashion for them doing *pranayama *at

cocktail parties. They also sneered at our sanyasis, calling them

disparagingly as “Godmen”. Now they flock to ashrams with their white

friends ever since the Beatles did. Who knows, they may soon boast of a cow

in their backyards. For those of us who are *desi* by pedigree and

conviction, I place some facts about the cow in the new perspective of

modern Hindutva.

 

The cow was elevated to the status of divinity in the *Rg.Veda* iself.

In Book VI, the Hymn XXVIII attributed to Rishi Bhardwaja, extols the

virtue of the cow. In Atharva Veda (Book X, Hymn 10), the cow is formally

designated as Vishnu, and “all that the Sun surveys.” This divine quality of

the cow has been affirmed by Kautilya in his Arthsastra (Chapter XXIX) as

well.

 

The Indian society has addressed the cow as *gow mata*. The Churning

of the Sea episode brings to light the story of the creation of the cow.

Five divine Kamadhenus (wish cows), viz, Nanda, Subhadra, Surabhi, Sushila,

Bahula emerged in the churning.

 

Cow is there in the company of Bhagwan Dattatreya and Gopal Krishna.

Cow is the vehicle of Shaillputri and Gowri – two of the nine manifestations

of Goddess Durga. Ancient coins with image of bull Nandi on them have been

found in excavations.

 

Thousands of names of places, persons and things in our country have

name of the cow: e.g. Gauhati, Gorakhpur, Goa, Godhra, Gondiya, Godavari,

Goverdhan, Gautam, Gomukh, Gokarna, Goyal, Gochar etc. , that signify the

deep reverence and high ground reserved for the cow and her progeny in our

culture. Why ? Because of the deep abiding faith that the cow is verily the

Annapurna.

 

In 2003, the National Commission on Cattle presided over by Justice

G.M. Lodha, submitted its recommendations to the NDA Government. The Report

(in 4 volumes) called for stringent laws to protect the cow and its progeny

in the interest of India’s rural economy. This is anyway a Constitutional

requirement under Directive Principles of State Policy. Article 48 of the

Constitution says: “The State shall endeavour to organize agriculture and

animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular,

take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the

slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle”. In 1958,

a 5-member Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court { (1959) SCR 629}

upheld Article 48 and the consequently held total ban on cow slaughter as a

reasonable restriction on Fundamental Rights of all Indians.

 

When India fought the First War of Independence in 1857, and Bahadur

Shah ‘Zafar’ was installed as Emperor by the Hindus in Delhi for a brief

period, his Hindu Prime Minister, on the Emperor’s Proclamation, made the

killing of cow a capital offence. Earlier in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s

kingdom, the only crime that had capital punishment was cow slaughter.

 

For a Hindu, the very appearance of a cow evokes a sense of piety.

See however the most reckless bus driver avoids the cow that squats in the

middle of the road. The cow is serene by temperament and herbivorous by

diet. It is multi-product animal. Apart from milk, cow dung known for its

anti-septic value, is still used as fuel in its dried caked form in most

Indian villages. It is also used in compost manure and in the production of

electricity through eco-friendly gobar-gas. Thus, Mahatma Gandhi had

declared: “Cow protection is more important than even Swaraj”.

 

The cow, according to Vedas provides the following four products for

human society :

 

1. *Godugdha* (Cow milk): As per Ayurveda, cow milk’s composition has

fat, carbohydrate, minerals, calcium, Iron and Vitamin B, an

even a capacity

for resistance of the body against radiation and regenerate brain cells.

2. *Goghruta *(Cow Ghee): Best among all kinds of ghee. As per

Ayurveda classics it is useful in various kind of systematic,

physical and

mental disorders as well as it sustain the age for long time. When it is

used in Yajna, it improves the oxygen level in the air around.

3. *Gomutra* (Cow Urine): A total of 8 types of urine are used for

medicinal purpose now a days. Among those, Cow urine is held to be the

best. Hence the Americans are busy patenting while we are busy sneering

about it. Anti-cancer, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal property is

found in it.

It is also having anti-oxidant and immuno modulator property,

which is very

much useful for immune deficiency diseases which are increasing

now a day.

In classics there are so many references available where cow urine is

mentioned as a drug of choice. Even Parsis of Zoroastrian religion follow

this practice.

 

Besides milk and dung, the ancient Hindu wisdom that cow’s urine has

medicinal properties and hence accessible at low cost to the rural poor, is

borne out by Patents granted in United States.

 

Two US patents have been granted for cow urine distillate (US Pat. No.

6410059 & 6896907) for anti-micro-bial, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal,

anti-cancer properties, also it is having a lot of anti-exidants. Since it

has got immumomodulatory compounds in it, it is a very good bio-enhancer to

facilitate drug availability to high extent in our body. Patent from China

is also granted to cow urine distillate as a DNA protector.

 

One global patent has been granted for cow urine, neem and garlic as a

pest repellent, fungicidal and growth promontory properties for all

different crops (WHO 2004/087618A1) .

 

Another US patent has been granted for strains obtained from Sahiwal cow

milk for plant growth promoter phytopathogenic fungi controlling activity,

abiotic stress tolerating capability, phosphatic solubilisation capability,

etc. (US patent No. 7097830 dated 29/8/06).

 

Also CSIR has filed US patent for Amrit Pani (mixture of cow dung + cow

urine + jaggery) from NBRI Lucknow for soil health improvement properties.

 

All the above claims had been made in Charaka Samhita, Sushrut, Vaghbhati

and Nighantu, Ratnakar, etc.

 

The above examples very well prove the utility of cow dung and urine for

sustainable agriculture as well as for almost curing or giving relief in

many serious diseases like psoriasis, eczema, asthma, diabetes, blood

pressure, renal failures and cancer, etc.

 

This confirms Vedic message: *Gomay Vasate Laxmi* i.e. cow dung is a

source of wealth, whereas in western culture dung and urine are considered

to be waste, even if their modern medical research has begun changing its

view.

 

 

1. *Gomaya *(Cow Dung): Gomaya is considered equally valuable as Gau

mutra and it is used to purify the environment. Cow dung has

radium and it

checks the radiation effects.

 

Furthermore, the common argument in the West for slaughtering cows is

no more uncontested. Beef is not of high protein content as believed. Any

dietician’s chart shows that beef, with 22 per cent protein, ranks far below

vegetable products like soyabeen (43), groundnut (31), pulses (24).

Moreover, excess intake of protein is not good as it only contributes to

obesity, a bane of modern civilization. Moreover, to procure 1 kg of beef

(or for that matter any flesh) it takes 7 kg of crops and 7,000 kg. of

water.

 

Thus protection of the cow thus makes good economic and ecological

sense. Swami Dayananda Saraswati, the scholar-sanyasi and Convenor of the

Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, a body of all prominent Hindu religious heads,

has argued that non-vegetarianism indirectly contributes heavily to green

house gases and other pollution.

 

He quotes a report from the United Nations of the year 2006 that

reveals the surprising fact that “raising animals for meat as food generates

more green house gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined.”

Ten of billions of animals farmed for food, release gases such as methane,

nitrous oxide and carbon-di-oxide through their massive amounts of manure.

Animals such as cows and sheep, being ruminant, emit huge amount of methane

due to flatulence and burping. “The released methane”, the report says, “has

23 times the global warming potential of CO2”. It is alarming to note that

the livestock industry alone is responsible for 37% of human induced methane

emissions. To make room for these animals to graze, the virgin forests are

cleared. The livestock industry also needs a vast stretches of land to raise

mono-crops to feed the animals. The CO2 that the trees and plants store

escapes back into the air when they are destroyed.

 

Growing fodder for farmed animals implies heavy use of synthetic

fertilizers produced with fossil fuels. While this process emits a huge

amount of CO2 fertilizer itself releases nitrous oxide (3) – a green house

gas that is 296 times more potent than CO2. Alarming though these facts are,

Swamiji sees in them a reason for hope. All that the people ever have to do

is to avoid red-meat eating. In the absence of demand for meat there is no

more need for breeding millions of animals for daily slaughter. And then

animals population would cease to be medicated or inseminated for continuous

breeding, thereby the population would be regulated

 

A single individual by simply not consuming meat prevents the

equivalent of 1.5 tons CO2 emissions in a year. This is more than the one

ton of CO2 emissions prevented by switching from a large sedan to a small

car. One needs to have an honest commitment to save the mother earth who

has been relentlessly patient and magnanimous since she began bearing life.

There are a number of reasons for one to be a vegetarian. People given to

meat eating think that a pure vegetarian diet is optional. But now they have

no choice if they are alive to what is happening to this life-bearing

planet. There is no justification whatsoever for one to continue to be a

non-vegetarian knowing the devastating consequences of meat eating.

 

As Swami Dayananda Saraswati has noted:

 

“Promotion of vegetarianism does not require any legislation from the

State. It does require a change of heart on the part of meat eating

individuals anywhere on this planet. I cannot appeal to the tigers and

wolves. They are programmed to be what they are. Being endowed with freewill

only a human being can make a difference by exercising responsibly his or

her choice.”

 

If it is too much for one to switch to be a total vegetarian, then one needs

to give up at least red-meat eating.

 

Cattle can be conveniently reared today only in villages because

villages have open grazing lands and natural atmosphere and ponds, etc.,

which urban dwellings do not have.

 

But as the erstwhile Sar Sanghchalak of RSS Sri Sudarshan has

observed at meeting of ‘Gobhakta’ industrialists in New Delhi recently, for

rural economic development *cow-based* industries should be set up. An

example of this is of Dr. Shrikrishna Mittal who successfully made tiles out

of cow dung that could be used in rural housing for a long period. Of course

Gobar gas has already come to stay.

 

Hence, a new fervour is necessary to create a *cow-renaissance* in the

nation. As Bahadur Shah and Maharaja Ranjit Singh did, we should amend the

IPC to make cow slaughter as a capital offence as well as a ground for

arrest under the National Security Act, to give meaning and urgency to the

total ban on cow slaughter. It is constitutional and is Hindutva.

The cow is thus a part of Hindutva, and we should defend it with all

our might.