History of Vegitarianism and Cow Veneration in India

Author(s): Willem B Bollee
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd

Page 74

CONTRIBUTIONS
In the ritual of the Gṛhyasūtras, cattle sacrifices play an important role. As to this Hillebrandt (1903: 73) remarks:
Apastamba 3, 9 mentions as occasions for the sacrifice of a cow 'a guest, the fathers, weddings,... Accordingly we find cattle sacrifices at the argha-festival (P. 1, 3, 26, etc.), at the second aṣṭakā (P. 3, 3, 8, etc.), at weddings and at the sacrifice of a so-called "cow on the spit".'170
We have already seen that the cattle sacrifice for the guest was still adhered to in the entire law-literature as it also was in the metrical Smrtis, [57] but in it even the use of beef at the sacrifices for the dead can still be proven.
In a number of legal texts, we find a long list of the foods to be offered to the fathers with instructions about how long each of these foods can satisfy the fathers. Manu 3, 266-273 contains this odd menu card for the fathers. It begins with seeds, roots and fruits satisfying only for one month. There follows fish meat which satisfies for two months, and then a list of eleven kinds of meat by which the duration of satisfaction increases from three to eleven months: '... boar and buffalo meat satisfy them for ten months, but that of hares and tortoises for eleven months.'171 Then vs 271 continues:
One year gavyena payasā pāyasena vā; through the flesh of an old he-goat a twelve-years' satisfaction takes place. (The vegetable) Kālaśāka, (the fish) maha-salka, rhinoceros' and red goat's meat as well as honey satisfy indefinitely, and (likewise) all foods for ascetics.172
Bühler translates the words gavyena payasā pāyasena vā as 'with cowmilk and milk-rice'. However, Medhātithi's commentary, which states
170 For more on this so-called śula-gava see Hillebrandt 1897: 83 (and Gonda 1980: 435ff. [with further literature in note 64], where the 'spit-ox sacrifice' is explained as 'a special animal sacrifice in honour of Rudra' (WB).
171 daśa māsāms tu trpyanti varaha-mahiṣâmiṣaiḥ śasa-kurmayor mamsena māsān
ekādaśâiva tu.
172 samvatsaram tu gavyena payasā pāyasena vā
vārdhrīņasasya māmsena
tṛptir dvādaśa-vārṣikī || kālaśākam mahāśalkaḥ khaḍga-lohâmiṣam madhu / anantyäyâiva, kalpante muny-annāni ca sarvaśaḥ.
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