Present-Day Worship of the Cow in India

Abstract

Animal worship in India does not extend its scope to all the kinds of living creatures represented there, as it did in Ancient Egypt. It favours rather a small number of animals: firstly the zebu, then the hulman ape (pithecus entellus), the Indian elephant, the Bengal tiger and some serpents. India, it seems, never practised general zoolatry, but adopted the hierarchical approach, so peculiar to its whole social system. supreme position, a 'Brahmanic' one, is held, without saying, by the cow. It must be emphasized that this does not mean the cow in general including its near relative the domesticated buffalo (what renders doubtful an economical interpretation of the phenomenon). It applies only to one species of the humped zebu which came from the steppes. definition of the Indian sacred cow is by no means a precise one, despite popular opinion in the West. Even though we are really only concerned with the zebu, we shall use the word 'cow' for simplicity's sake. Thus cow worship, in this sense, is a marked characteristic of the Hindu religion in India. One of the distinguished interpreters of Indian religion and theology to the Western World, the late German Professor Helmuth von Glasenapp, has said: The theoretical appreciation of Veda as the infallible revelation based on Brahmin authority...; the caste system; the incarnation doctrine; the karman law; and the periodic creation and fall of the universe are the main traits of Hinduism. In addition, there is the common mythological image; the belief in the sacredness of the cow; and the faith in bathing in the Ganges as a purification for sin... 1) German Indianist puts cow worship second in the list of additional traits of the faith prevailing in the sub-continent.