History of Vegitarianism and Cow Veneration in India

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

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HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM IN INDIA
For the purpose of our investigation it follows that, at least in the theory of certain ritual directions, the cow already had a certain special position in the late-Vedic period, in as much as its killing and its consumption are only allowed at a sacrifice at which, however, they remain common and permitted. This does, on the one hand, accord with what we shall have yet to say on the position of the cow in the Veda and has, on the other hand, evidently still nothing to do with ahimsā and the cow-taboo in the modern sense.
The Gahapatijātaka (199) shows, for example, that the rule to consume only the beef of sacrificial animals was, however, by no means generally followed in that at a famine the inhabitants of a village let the patil give them an old cow, the meat of which (vs 2: mamsam jaraggavam) they eat and promise to pay back in rice two months after the new harvest. The account of the consumption of the old cow is all the more credible as this feature is only of secondary significance for the story, which is actually a story of adultery. It is of particular interest, however, as a striking refutation of the rationalist explanation or justification of the sanctification of the cow which reads into it the judicious protection of the indispensable working helper and milk-supplier before its destruction in times of hunger.
A testimony to beef consumption which again admittedly cannot be accurately dated, but in any case is comparably late, is the most well-known medical text-book, the Suśruta-Samhitā. At this point, it goes without saying [62] that physicians are basically characterized by a remarkable unscrupulousness with regard to meat eating. In the important chapter on foodstuffs and their medical qualities and therapeutic value, meat plays a significant role; and a formal cookbook of meat dishes and broths, presented to us on that occasion, stresses that it is not a matter of grey scientific theory. Physicians, however, do not make any distinction at all between kosher and non-kosher animals: among the numerous animals they divide into a number of classes according to various principles and of which they specify the qualities of their meat, those permitted and those prohibited by the Dharma works stand indiscriminately side by side and mixed up.
With Susruta (Sūtrasthāna, Chap. 46) the cow – after the horse and the mule, but before ass, camel, goat, sheep and fat-tailed sheep - belongs to the 'village animals' (grāmya), and in vs 89 it is said: 'Beef is a good remedy for asthma, cough, catarrh, chronic fever, exhaustion and for quick digestion; it is purifying (pavitra) and alleviates wind.'180 Moreover, Susruta (Śarīrasthāna 3) deals with pregnancy whims. First he explains the well-known doctrine
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