This one sprang from a question in quora and part of the question was-
Are Indians, who treat cows as mothers and consume milk products, vegan?
"In India, in the olden days, we took cows as mother. According to scriptures also, there are seven mothers: (1) the real mother, (2) the wife of the spiritual master, (3) the wife of a brahmana, (4) the wife of the king, (5) the cow, (6) the nurse, and (7) the earth. All of them are mothers. Even in present days every Indian is taught in school (Gaya hamari mata hai i.e. Cow is our mother)."
For me question provoked much deeper thoughts than just categorizing the people.
As it is said in the question itself, cow is mother like mother earth. Like We consume produce of mother earth, so we do consume produce of cow. Right to life is implicit in Indian culture. There are several classifications and people are comfortable in their own belief systems. So it is always easy to criticism other's belief system. But there is one more fundamental in Indian culture and that is not to hurt the feelings of others. So this mentality that only my way is right way is never overwhelming in India. As for cow being holy there are economic reasons for that. In brief, cow was basis of existence of agrarian society. So when two kingdoms fight you can kill all the cows and destroy the society as society would not have been able to survive without agriculture. To avoid this destruction cow was elevated to be holy. After that you can win the territory, conquer the people but land will not lay waste and civilization will not be destroyed. Over the years people developed different degrees of reverence towards this. But net result was that in India you will not find destructive wars where whole tracts were laid waste. Because your own soldiers will not support you in absolute destruction. So caw was major part of this equation. Similarly in India women and children were not attacked and enslaved (which was quiet common in western society). Now it has become quiet fashionable to degrade this status provided to cow without understanding the whole picture. People enter into hollow technicalities without going into depth of issue. Only in past 100 year, it is possible to do large scale agriculture without muscle power of oxen, bulls, horses, camel etc, depending on which society you come from. But usefulness of cow or for that matter other farm animals is coming to the for once again with increasing emphasis on organic produce. Within 30-40 years time, we shall be able understand this issue in larger perspective. So caw was accorded status of mother not just for being a vegetarian society. There were larger reasons behind this. And that larger reason was agriculture and survival of whole society.
Are Indians, who treat cows as mothers and consume milk products, vegan?
"In India, in the olden days, we took cows as mother. According to scriptures also, there are seven mothers: (1) the real mother, (2) the wife of the spiritual master, (3) the wife of a brahmana, (4) the wife of the king, (5) the cow, (6) the nurse, and (7) the earth. All of them are mothers. Even in present days every Indian is taught in school (Gaya hamari mata hai i.e. Cow is our mother)."
For me question provoked much deeper thoughts than just categorizing the people.
As it is said in the question itself, cow is mother like mother earth. Like We consume produce of mother earth, so we do consume produce of cow. Right to life is implicit in Indian culture. There are several classifications and people are comfortable in their own belief systems. So it is always easy to criticism other's belief system. But there is one more fundamental in Indian culture and that is not to hurt the feelings of others. So this mentality that only my way is right way is never overwhelming in India. As for cow being holy there are economic reasons for that. In brief, cow was basis of existence of agrarian society. So when two kingdoms fight you can kill all the cows and destroy the society as society would not have been able to survive without agriculture. To avoid this destruction cow was elevated to be holy. After that you can win the territory, conquer the people but land will not lay waste and civilization will not be destroyed. Over the years people developed different degrees of reverence towards this. But net result was that in India you will not find destructive wars where whole tracts were laid waste. Because your own soldiers will not support you in absolute destruction. So caw was major part of this equation. Similarly in India women and children were not attacked and enslaved (which was quiet common in western society). Now it has become quiet fashionable to degrade this status provided to cow without understanding the whole picture. People enter into hollow technicalities without going into depth of issue. Only in past 100 year, it is possible to do large scale agriculture without muscle power of oxen, bulls, horses, camel etc, depending on which society you come from. But usefulness of cow or for that matter other farm animals is coming to the for once again with increasing emphasis on organic produce. Within 30-40 years time, we shall be able understand this issue in larger perspective. So caw was accorded status of mother not just for being a vegetarian society. There were larger reasons behind this. And that larger reason was agriculture and survival of whole society.
In coastal areas of India, people were never supposed to be pure vegetarians, still they considered cow as mother because it fitted into the equation of their agriculture.
Now urban people who just had modern schooling are not educated about these facts. And for the masses, you can not ask them to work on pure logic so a belief was created that cow is holy or cow is mother but real reason was economic and survival of human society.
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