The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1884-01-02
The Hindoo Cow.

N1OIldIuIllCuduS
ing their Fed festival, and parties of
them, as usual, had combined for the
purchase of animals for the evenings
feast. One of the kline thus obtained,
however, was claimed by the Hindoos
as dependent of temple devoted to
their god, and therefore itself sacred.
Moreover, they gave certain degree of
evidence to prove the sincerity of their
statement by offering to buy back the
COW for the sum of hundred pounds
probably twenty times the value of the
animal Nevertheless the Mohamme-
dams refused to part with it, and per-
sisted in dragging the COW off to the
slaughter-house The Hindoos thereon
attempted rescue, and the result was
a serious affray, which was only quelled
by the appearance of the chief European
officials and strong force of police. A
few wears ago the same cause of quar-
rel might have suf1iced to raise a gen.
eral tumult, or even to kindle in the
city blaze, both literally and meta
phorically. In all India probably no
single act could be perpetrated more
likely to lead at once to bloodshed and
disaster than an insult by Mohamme-
dams to the sacred presence of temple
COW.
No animal in all the range of zoolatry
has ever arrived at such dignities rs the
Hindoo COW. The monkey is sufficient
~ sacred, and it. goes hard with the,
novice who, unconscious of his sacrilege,
shoots the village peaeocks. In other
countries, as in the case of the dog and
baboon, bull and ram, crocodile, hawk
and ibis of ancient Egypt, or the eagle
and crow, snake, wolf, shark, and pike
of the modern clan-animal worship.
many birds and beasts, reptiles and
fishes, have attracted to themselves the
homage of nations. Bet, putting them
all together, whether in fur, feather. or
scales, they do not collectively outweigh
the stupendous sanctity with which
Brahmanism has invested the COW. The
bull shares in some degree its partners
honors, and in the more exclusively
Hindoo towns sacred cattle Of both
sexes lounge about the streets. No
place is forbidden to them, and they are
free of every stall. Whenever they
choose to feed, there they are at liberty
to eat; and wherever they choose to lie
down, that place is theirs. The sweet
meat seller may bride the sacred beast
with lump of sugar-stuff to pass on to
the next stall, or the grain-seller may
exchage a chatty of cheaper grain for
that into which the fastidious beast has
plunged its black muzzle. Yet they are
never struck and seldom reproached,
except with qualifying phrases of re-
spect, in which the merchant deprecate,
his four-legged visitors displeasure or
apologies for his refusal of more viands
on the score of his own pow
erty. The COW, and not the bull,
however, is pre-eminently the OBJ
ject of worship. The latter may
be specially sacred as the vehicle of
this god or a particular symbol OF that,
but the former pervades the whole re-
| ligion, and itself adds sancity to every
| deity in the Pantheon. When Brahma,
the All-Father, took upon himself the
benefcent function of creation, he first
made gods and then the holy men, and
the COW and the Brahman were pro-
| duced by the same act of power. Sc
Brahmanism and the COW are insepara-
BILE, and the animal the twin as it were,
of the holy ''twice-born," takes rank
| above many ctsstea of men To save
| the life of a COW, to do it a service, tc
| tend it in sickness. to revere it at al
| times, are almost as advantageous in
| the hereafter as if the same acts had
been done toward Brahman. To Kill
COW, to wound it, or to insult it, is
reckoned, in the full austerity of Brah.
manism, a more heinous offence than
similar wrongs inflicted upon the lowest
castles of human beings. The mere act
of eating ''ghee'' Clarified butter
| condones many sins, while the consump-
ton of ''the five products of the COW
cleanses from all pollution. The camel
selected to cary the Sultan's annual gift
of the new veil to Mecca is, in memory
of the beast which the Prophet rode
| treated with ell the pOmp and care thai
would be extended to Majesty itself
and the competition for the honorable
posts of attendance upon the brute i;
sometimes very keen. So, too, in Egyp
once year the sacred animals become
by priestly condescension, the object:
of public solicitude and recipient:
of public services. Among DIX
Hindoos every COW lives in the Same
sancity perennially, and enjoys 4 uni
versal tenderness Of treat.2o.5 iron
years end to years end. During al
the rest of the twelvemontI, when ;. l.
not lettering along the caravan-roule Il
the Holy City. the camel OF ISLAM re
ceived but scant respect from pfcTeket
rider or short-tcmpcrcd owner. 80
too, the furry obliquities of Egyptian
alteration relapscd in the majority 0
cases and for the greater part of tn
year into their proper places IN the ani
NAL world But the glory of the Gov
of Hindostan, like that OF its prototyp,
in Vedic legends, is never in eclipse
It is ALWAYS at the meridian. In the olt
primitive fancies with which geological
mythology so largely concerns itself
the COW was, beyond all comparison
the most conspicuous feature. 1t wa
the sun, moon, and stars, thunder AM
lightning, rain and wind and mist
Everything that could seen in nature
, and nearly everything that could b
ri guessed at, found symbolical repre-
? sentation in the same idea of the COW
! 1.-THE mother of the gods, - goddess G
, abundance" ''chcrisher of man So t
this day we find it in Hindoo zoolatry a
the supreme expression of the kindli
ness of the powers of nature to mar
and authentic proof of the goodness c
the gods. Though all the herds tina
other peoples worshipped have gon
from the earth with the credulities upo
which they pastured, the bull of Shiv
and the COW of Brabma have still thei
affairs in a thousand temples, and arrC
gate the central dignity in religio
which has OO,O0G,Oo0 believers. T
this day Hindoos devoutly believed i
Kamadhuk. the "Cow of Plenty" whic
yields in Heaven, from her exuberar
udders, every gift and blessing whic
the spirits of the dead can demand
London Telegraph.