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CATTLE, FIELD AND BARLEY
471
adjacent countries) as Neohinduism would like us to believe; cf. e.g. J.L. Kipling, Beast and Man in India, London 1891 (in particular pp. 119f., 126f., 142 ff.); N.S. Ramaswamy, The Management of Animal Energy Resources and the Modernization of the Bullock-Cart System, Bangalore 1979 (sec. ed) (in particular the photographs at the end) and J. H. Lensch, Probleme und Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten der Rinder- und Büffelhaltung in Indien unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der 'Heiligen Kühe'-eine interdisziplinäre Betrachtung (Dissertation) Göttingen 1985, pp. 100 ff.
47 I do not strive for completeness here. 48 cf. also this commentary on M. 8. 240-241.
49 That members of the bovine species may destroy also the roots of plants by their hoofs, e.g. by repeatedly treading on the same path or by pawing the ground, is a quite different phenomenon. -Corn if it grew again after having been eaten bare to the roots could, of course, be used as green fodder; but evidently this is not what it was grown for in India; it is also hardly probable that ratoon cropping was of any importance. See also $8 6.3 and 6.4.
50 Vijñāneśvara's motive is, of course, the avoidance of any disagreement between the Smộti texts.
51 cf. also Aparärka's explanation : bhakṣaṇamardanābhyām parasasyopaghātini mahişi mahişo vā ..... Nārada (XI 28 and 29) in that he confronts the herdsman (pāla) with the owner of the land (tatsvāmin), aims at the same clarification.
52 By setting up a fence and taking similar measures, what one wants to achieve (apart from following the rules of dharma) is to protect one's fields against the cattle belonging to others, and, of course, also against such wild animals as might cause equal danger; cf. e.g. the verse ascribed by Aparārka (on Y. 2. 162) to Kātyāyana (cf. Katyāyana-mata-Samgraha .. by N. C. Bandopadhyaya, Calcutta 1927, p. 50): ajāteşv eva sasyeșu kuryād avaranam mahat | duḥkhena hi niväryante labdhasvādurasā mrgāḥ //, as well as Patañjali's (Bh. I 100.1) na ca mrgāḥ santiti yavā nopyante (where the damage to crops caused by forest animals is, however, looked upon as something one sometimes has to reckon with).