Vedic Hindus Did Not Eat Cows

[Guest guest]

Did Vedic Hindus really eat cows?

 

By Sandhya Jain

 

Under the pretext of disseminating true knowledge about the past to

young, impressionable school children, a perverse assault has been

launched upon the religious sensitivities of the Hindu community.

Marxist historians allege that ancient Hindus ate beef, that this is

recorded in their sacred scriptures, and that this should be taught to

school children. The Hindu prohibition on cow slaughter, they say, is

a more recent development and Hindus are shying away from this truth

because it is intimately linked with their sense of identity.

 

A Marxist specialist on ancient India, ignorant in both Vedic and

Panini's Sanskrit, claims that the Shatapatha Brahmana and Vasistha

Dharmasutra clearly state that guests were honoured by serving beef.

She also cites archaeological evidence as reported by H.D. Sankalia

and B.B. Lal. While the lady thinks her evidence is irrefutable, I

have decided to pick up the gauntlet.

 

To begin with, the Shatapatha Brahmana is Yajnavalkya's commentary on

the Yajur Veda, and not a revealed text. As for the Vasistha

Dharmasutra, the legendary Sanskritist, late P.V. Kane, said, " beyond

the name Vasistha there is hardly anything special in the dharmasutra

to connect it with the Rgveda. " Kane also added, " grave doubts have

been entertained about the authenticity of the whole of the text of

the Vas.Dh.S. as the mss. (manuscripts) contain varying numbers of

chapters from 6 to 30, and as the text is hopelessly corrupt in

several places… many verses…bear the impress of a comparatively late

age. " Kane tentatively places this text between 300-100 B.C., that is,

long after the end of the Vedic age.

 

According to archaeologists, the early Vedic age tentatively falls

between the fourteen century BC to the first millennium BC. The later

Vedic period lies between 1000 BC to 600-700 BC. But if we go by

astronomical dating of some of the hymns, we get a period of 7000 BC

for a portion of the Vedas.

 

The honest question, however, is whether the Vedas offer evidence

about cow slaughter and beef-eating, and if not, how the controversy

arose in the first place. A few clarifications are in order before we

proceed. The word `cow' (gau), for instance, is used throughout the

Vedas in diverse senses, and, depending on the context of the verse,

could mean the animal cow, waters, sun-rays, learned persons, Vedic

verses, or Prithvi (earth as Divine Mother).

 

Then, Vedic society was heterogeneous, pluralistic, and

non-vegetarian. In theory, it is possible that the cow was killed and

eaten. The fact, however, is that throughout the Vedas the cow is

called a non-killable animal, or " aghnya. " According to " An

Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Sanskrit on Historical Principles " (Vol.

I, Deccan College, Poona), " aghnya " means " not to be killed or

violated " and is used for cows and for waters in the presence of which

oaths were taken.

 

The Rig and Sama Veda call the cow " aghnya " and " Aditi " , ie. not to be

murdered (Rig 1-64-27; 5-83-8; 7-68-9; 1-164-40; 8-69-2; 9-1-9;

9-93-3; 10-6-11; 10-87-16). They extol the cow as un-killable,

un-murderable, whose milk purifies the mind and keeps it free from

sin. Verse 10-87-16 prescribes severe punishment for the person who

kills a cow. The Atharva Veda recommends beheading (8-3-16) for such a

crime; the Rig Veda advocates expulsion from the kingdom (8-101-15).

 

Hence, it seems unlikely that the cow would be slaughtered to

entertain guests, as claimed by Marxist historians. But before coming

to any conclusion, the archaeological evidence should also be

examined. Archaeologists have excavated bones of cattle in huge

quantity, " cattle " is a collective noun which includes the cow, bull,

buffalo, nilgai and all other bovine animals. Nowhere in the world can

experts differentiate between the bones of cows and other cattle

recovered from excavations.

 

There are good reasons for this difficulty. Most of the bones found

are not whole carcasses, but large pieces of limbs. Experts feel that

these could be the remains of animals that died naturally and were

skinned for their hide and bones. Ancient man used bones to make

knives and other tools; the splintered bones found could be part of

the tool-making exercise. In all honesty, therefore, cattle bone finds

do not prove cow slaughter or the eating of cow meat, especially when

all literary evidence points in the opposite direction.

 

There has been talk about cut-marks on the bones. But apart from

tool-making, even if a tanner skins dead cattle for the hide, he will

inflict cut marks on the carcass. Scientifically, it is not possible

to say if the marks on the bones are ante-mortem or post-mortem. This

can be determined only where the body is intact (animal or human), by

analyzing blood vessels, tissue, rigor mortis and other factors.

 

Fortunately, there is now clinching evidence why the Marxist claim on

cow-flesh rests on false premises. As already stated, the allegation

rests mainly on literary sources and their interpretation, and we are

in a position to trace the source of the mischief – the Vachaspatyam

of Pandit Taranath and his British mentors.

 

Pandit Taranath, a professor of grammar at the Calcutta Sanskrit

College, compiled a six-volume Sanskrit-to-Sanskrit dictionary, which

is used by scholars to this day. The Vachaspatyam is a valuable guide

for scholars because there are certain words in the samhita (mantra)

section of the Vedas that are not found later in the Puranas.

 

What most Sanskrit scholars have failed to notice is that Taranath

artfully corrupted the meanings of a few crucial words of the Vedic

samhita to endorse the meaning given by Max Muller in his translation

of the Vedas. Swami Prakashanand Saraswati has exposed this

beautifully in " The True History and the Religion of India, A Concise

Encyclopedia of Authentic Hinduism " (Motilal Banarsidass).

 

The British idea was that Max Muller would translate the Rig Veda " in

such a scornful manner that Hindus themselves should begin to reproach

their own religion of the Vedas, " while a Hindu pandit would " compile

an elaborate Sanskrit dictionary that should exhibit disgraceful

meanings of certain words of the Vedic mantras. " As Hindus would not

question a dictionary by a Hindu pandit, the British would be able to

claim that whatever Max Muller wrote about the Vedas was according to

the dictionary of the Hindus.

 

Swami Prakashanand Saraswati focuses on two words – goghn and

ashvamedh. " Goghn " means a guest who receives a cow as gift. Panini

created a special sutra to establish the rule that goghn will only

mean the receiver of a cow (and will not be used in any other sense).

But Taranath ignored Panini's injunction and wrote that " goghn " means

" the killer of a cow. " He similarly converted the ashvamedh yagna from

`ritual worship of the horse' to the " killing of the horse. "

 

The Swami proves the British hand in this mischief through the

patronage given to Taranath by the Government of Bengal in 1866, when

Lt. Governor Sir Cecil Beadon sanctioned ten thousand rupees for two

hundred copies of his dictionary. This was a king's ransom in those

days, as even in the 1930s the headmaster of a vernacular primary

school received a salary of twenty rupees a month. Today, ten thousand

rupees is the equivalent of two million rupees.

 

When the basic premise upon which all modern translations rest is thus

knocked off its pedestal, what beef is left in the theory that Vedic

Hindus enjoyed the flesh of the cow? I rest my case.

 

 

 

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