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THE COW IS OUR MOTHER!!!

The Cow is a sacred animal in the Hindu religion. Dairy products are extensively used in Hindu culture and are one of the most essential nutritional components of Hindu meals. Panchagavya, a mixture of five products of cow, milk, curd, butter, urine, and dung, is consumed in Brahmanical rituals. The mixture is also smeared on ulcers as a healing product. The goddess Lakshmi is thought to reside in cow dung.^[2]

Veneration of the cow increased during medieval times when the rate of cow slaughter increased phenomenally. It is also believed that Muslim sacrifice of cows during Bakr-Id ,also led to an increase in cow veneration among Hindus.

Protection Movement

Historians argue that the symbol of the cow was used as a means of mobilizing Hindus. In the 1870s, cow protection movements spread rapidly in the Punjab, the North-West provinces, Awadh and Rohilkhand. Arya Samaj had a tremendous role in skillfully converting this sentiment into a national movement.

The first Gaurakshini sabha (cow protection society) was established in the Punjab in 1882. The movement spread rapidly all over North India and to Bengal, Bombay, Madras and other central provinces. The organization rescued wandering cows and reclaimed them to groom them in places called gaushalas (cow refuges). Charitable networks developed all through North India to collect rice from individuals, pool the contributions, and re-sell them to fund the gaushalas. Signatures, up to 350,000 in some places, were collected to demand a ban on cow sacrifice.

During Dayananda’s time, cow protection was not much regarded as an anti-Muslim phenomenon, and he attempted to build a rational and respectable movement around this sentiment. It gradually became an issue of communal rivalry as it became a legal issue and calls for a legal ban on cow slaughter were raised.

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                                                     Hare Krishna!

Stop the slaughter of cows!