Animal sacrifices in temples

Serena

I have this thought in my mind since a lot of time and I am very curious to know something more about it.
I've obviously never seen one during my visits to India but I know that somewhere still happens .....
Is it really true? Is it only for particular sect or deity?
I know about a particular festival in Nepal, but what about India?

Thank you .

Bryan

Not sure how common it is elsewhere but i watched a number of goats being sacrificed daily at the Kali temple in Calcutta

I slso remember thousands of goats outside the main mosque in delhi waiting for the chop due to some religious festival ...If i remember right the festival was around June

Bryan

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pooch

When my mate got married in Tanjore, I think it was 2 days later we visited this temple in the outskirts and 2 or 3 goats were sacrificed. I don't know the significance though.

What Bryan saw was Eid al adha or Bakhr eid as they call it in India, last year it was in Feb. Muslim events don't fall on the same day every year as they follow a lunar calendar.

hash666

animal sacrifice is really common in india...it happens over the length and breadth of the whole country...both hindus and muslims perform them...muslims cut animals for eid ...hindus can cut them for any reason like my friend cut acouple of goats when he had his first son ... in arunachal pradesh to get married one has to sacrifice a mithun(a kind of cow) and the whole village feasts on it....

Mickey1234

Hi

As far as I was given to believe the only animal sacrifice done in a Hindu temple is at the Kali temple in Kolkata, it is not done anywhere else. The meat is also not cooked in the temple but given away.

I was out there in Dec and there were a few poor goats on offer for sacrifice. I did not actually witness a sacrifice but was also told that the meat and/or blood is not ( .. I repeat NOT) presented to the diety at the temple.

rickshawwallah

Animal sacrifice is indeed reasonably common in Hindu temples, and I have witnessed a few over the years. The most memorable one was at a small temple above Kugti village in Chamba district, Himachal: There I met the tehsildar of Pangi region, who was there to perform one of his official duties, the annual sacrifice of a goat. (While I'm quite confident that this duty was not in his official job description, it was clear that his constituents very strongly expected it of him.) The tehsildar was a very anglicized fellow, with an upper crust accent, a tailored western suit, and a tremendous look of unease with the whole experience. His wife, who was even more squeamish about this "duty", stayed some distance from the temple, eagerly awaiting the end of the spectacle. The tehsildar recruited myself and my travelling companion to assist him with what he obviously felt was a very distasteful task, and we were rewarded with a good deal of the meat from the carcass (which we skinned, and gave the majority of the meat to the tehsildar). We cooked and ate the meat at our camp in a cave a few hours up the trail that night, and it was probably the finest meat I have ever eaten. No substitute for freshness.

I wish I knew:
1) the name of the temple
2) what signifigance this distant location had to the people of Pangi tehsil
3) whether the tradition continues to this day (I was there in 1997)

volga_volga

i have just come across this link (20 Feb):

Tamil Nadu lifts ban on sacrifice

may be someone from down South can pour some light on the politics behind it?

sudheer poppa

In north kerala it is common to sacrifice chickens. This is along with the theyyam festival and other minor small temple festivals in which a person with spirit breaks open the neck of the hen and takes blood out ( I am not too sure if they drink it also!)

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cyberhippie

I used to watch the fishermen sacrificing chickens and the odd goat almost everyday in Puri. By a small makes shift shrine next to the fishing boats. I always assumed that this was just some pagan ritual the fishermen had carried on.
Fishermen the world over are very supersticious!

Serena

So this sacrifices aren't link to a particular event (except for muslim) or a particular deity (i.g Kali)?
And the meat of the animal after is always eaten?

hash666

in tamilnadu where i currently reside, it happens in temples dedicated to forms of the mother ie shakti, parashakti, amman etc...
ppl also sacrifice animals like goats and chicken for fulfillment of vows and wishes and also to remove doshas(evil eyes or bad stars in horoscopes)...
i myself had to cut the throat of a goat for the foundation laying ceremony of one of our family buildings as i was the only one present at the time in town....
the meat of animals sacrificed is eaten mainly...in case of dosha removal sacrifices the carcass is let go in a waterbody mainly rivers...
in tamil nadu common temples where this happens is
1)bannari amman temple, sathyamangalam
2)amman temple, mettupalayam...
and various other amman temples...
and yes serena there is no particular event linked to animal sacrifices...
i guess these sacrifices have been happening since time immemorial...in the old testament abraham sacrifices bulls and pigeons to Jehovah...

Serena

I found out a lot of interesting things (and orrible also!) in the web.

http://www.bluecross.org.in/AnimalSacrifice.html

albaruni

isn't kosher /halal meat a de facto animal sacrifice? (there's a rabbi/imam required to bless the animal to be killed...)

and I guess most people that eat meat do so from animals that somehow live or die less horribly than an animal sacrifice guillotine!

(I've witnessed animal sacrifices at Kalighat(calcutta) and all over the south. They look messy and gruesome, but this (IMO) is no different than a photo that came out a couple of years ago , of the queen elizabeth breaking the neck of a wounded bird during a royal hunt. People kill animals. get over it.

The association of religion with killing is STILL prevelent in some old religions- maybe not in christianity or buddhism.)

Shakyamuni

I didn't witness the actual killing taking place in Kathmandu last year, but came across the aftermath of a 'sacrifice' - this was a cow, or a yak. It was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen - I'll spare you the details. The smell, as you can imagine, was truly awful.

As a Buddhist, I just looked at the person who was cleaning his knives and wondered for a moment if he really, really, really understood what he had just done?

I think rebirth in the form of a farm animal awaits this poor chap...

getgopi1

If you are vegetarian, such sacrifices are definitely going to disgust you. But, in reality, such a sacrifice is not any different than what goes on in professional butcher shops (the results of which end up as pre-packaged products in your local stores). As for that poor chap, he was only doing what his elders did before him...a job that will feed him and his family.

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