Holy Cow !!!

SANJAY_DEL

It never fails to intrigue me how visitors to India are invariably excited by the cows on Indian streets; even beaches!
The cow pictures uploaded on to travel blogs are rivalled only by those of the Taj!

Few people, however, revere the cow like the world's 900 million adherents of Hinduism.
Since the faith first evolved near the Indus River more than 5,000 years ago, respect for animal life has been a central theme in Hindu life.

While many scholars say early Hindus ate beef, most ultimately came to see the cow as a sacred animal to be esteemed, not eaten.

"If someone were to ask me what the most important outward manifestation of Hinduism was, I would suggest that it was the idea of cow protection," Mahatma Gandhi, India's legendary leader, once wrote.

dreamer

If cows are so revered then why do most Indians insist on throwing their vegetable waste and other food cows could eat onto the streets INSIDE plastic bags? Thousand and thousands of cows die a painful death every year in India from strangulated guts. I don't see much care for any animals in India, cows included.

As far as fasicination for animals on the street goes, we are just not used to seeing animals roaming around and would consider it dangerous both for the animal and the traffic so our cows and other domestic animals are tucked away in a field somewhere.

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Digital Drifter

Revering the cow is one thing but at the end of it economic value, now that's why there is no God. Maneka Gandhi's campaign to ban cow slaughter is the 'virtuous evil'. To prevent cruelty to these animals,cow slaughter is banned; farmers unable to feed them, starve them or let them loose.

Either way, the gates of hell are opened for the holy cow.

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seventies'hippy

Borrowed from Edsitas gallery:

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dreamer

Brilliant sign! They should have these in every city and town if you ask me. And ban plastic bags....(all over the world not just in India)

PeakXV

I don't think it's just the cows. Monkeys, dogs, elephants, & sadhus all roam around the streets and are much photographed. It's more their untethered urban existence that makes them all so photogenic.

Sadhu's and elephant's mahouts usually demand a little baksheesh for a snap, monkees and dogs a little tidbit of food, while with cows the whole process is a freebee.

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Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

kpnuts

i am glad this sign has no words, cows cant read hindi can they

Sama

excellent point!

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wonderwomanusa

One of the worst things done in Kolkata is the ban on cows in the Chowringhee/New Market area. Where once Sudder Street had a couple of cows, there are now big piles of stinking garbage -- that is not hauled off often enough.

palerider

I know that cows have a bad bad time with plastic bags and stuff, but it is good that they are left alone, as well as dogs.
They're allowed to be as we are, unfettered by a master, to do as we wish.
It's a bit of a cunundrum

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almond

The western reaction to cows and everything else stems from the fac t that western society is highly controlled & regulated and they have never experienced the almost divinely-controlled chaos and free-for-all that they experience in India. All this within a relatively democratic and open framework can be fascinating to some and to others who are used to the 'comfort of order', it might be deeply disconcerting as well.

It sort of frees the mind to all types of possibilities. I would even call it liberating.

Nick-H

The cows are not really left alone.

They belong to someone, get milked and maybe even herded back to a shed somewhere.

Remember that what you see on the street is only the snapshot of a moment, cows, apparent chaos and all.

As to being divinely controlled --- well I'm an atheist, so it would be against my religion to agree with that one!

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icetea

Foreigners are fascinated with Indian cows mostly because they are in the streets mingling freely with people (as opposed to being confined into stables), rather because of the cows themselves. Moreover, most tourists would be city dwellers, so they don't often have the chance to closely interact with a cow

As about cow protection in Hinduism, I'm afraid it's just a myth, as reality shows the opposite (the sort of things that dreamer describes, plus the very rough handling they recieve during various processes, but these things happen in the West as well). Gandhi was very concerned by the way cows were and still are treated and wrote and lectured at length on this topic.

If there is something that still is a bit sacred, that's rather milk. I was reading an interesting book chapter the other day, about the purity attributed to milk throughout Indian mythology. Deriving from its religious connections, there was the care that went into its everyday preservation and milk preparations, mainly sweets. Until not long ago, milk was considered to be too pure to be mixed with other earthly ingredients except sugar and spices. This is why Indians, supposedly, were not acquainted with cheese-making techniques. It was only when the Portuguese came and settled down in a tiny port of Bengal that the practice of making cottage cheese - paneer - started in Bengal (paneer making is basically cutting milk with acid, lemon juice). All the famous Bengali sweets that we know today, from sandesh to rasgulla, are based on this, (and are quite atipically Indian, preciselly because of the idea of preserving the purity of milk, argues the author). Even though paneer-making and the sweets that are derived from it are widely popular today, they are usually made outside the home, and perhaps the above explanation has something to do with this too.

Sorry if I deviated from the topic a bit, I just thought that it's an interesting point. I was always surprised that, with all the availability of milk in India, its uses are restricted to sweets (and hence religious practices). I can still see surprise and mild disapproval on the rare ocasions when I cook milk-based dishes (other than sweets, I mean).

sirensongs

Almond is right about our fascination with the "divine chaos" (which actually has a great deal of order beneath the chaotic surface) of Indian street life. Western streetscapes and public life are extremely orderly and controlled,and there is no strength or positive trait that cannot eventually become a detraction if taken too far.

I have noticed the very soothing effect cows and other animals have on the environment. Just sitting in a street tea stall, seeing a couple cows amble by peacefully, a soothing vibe comes over the area. No wonder cows are equated in traditional philosophy with "sattvic" (pure and spiritual) qualities. Here in Bihar many people would not be able to cook without the gau-dung and at every bus stop I see women making dung-cakes in the sun.

I find it a pity that cows have been banned on certain streets.Ban the polluting, oversized, speeding, honking and hooting vehicles instead!

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almond

It is good that you pointed out about the soothing vibes from the cows who appear to be roaming stray. Such close 'social proximity' to cows spreads a sense of peace in the environment and touches one spiritually and makes one more humane even without anyone knowing it.

added ltr: Contrary to many Indians, I am a non-veggie and occasionaly find myself consuming the holiest of holies....yes, yes, I am a very evil & cruel man. But even with such bad habits I find that each time I have something fleshy, I have guilt pangs and I have to restrict myself to doing it just once in a month or so on though I crave for it much more (I have heard that the Dalai Lama himself has a go once a month or so..so I have company). I guess even hard-hearted people like me are affected by the omnipresent satvic vibes.