India is currently suffering from the second wave of the new crown epidemic, with new confirmed cases breaking records for many days. How to survive the pandemic has become a matter of concern for the Indian people. In this case, "cow urine" has become a "anti-epidemic saint" in the eyes of many Indians.
A lawmaker in India's Uttar Pradesh also personally recorded a video of him drinking cow urine and claimed: It is best to drink it in the morning on an empty stomach, which is the secret to his good health, and it also helps prevent diseases such as new crown pneumonia and heart disease. Drinking cow urine to prevent the new crown seems so incredible to us.
But when an act becomes a collective consensus, it cannot be explained by simple inconceivability. So, why is cow urine in the eyes of Indians so magical? In this issue of "History Micro-Study", I will talk to you about this issue.
The history of India has long been associated with cattle. During the Harappan civilization more than 4,000 years ago, the image of the cow was widely used in seals, sculptures, and murals. Later, the Aryans entered the South Asian subcontinent. The Aryans are nomadic peoples, so foods such as cow's milk and beef occupy an important place in their lives. In the early literature of the Aryans, in the Vedic literature, in which the Aryan faith evolved, cattle were also sung, but as a food, cattle did not attain a "supreme" status.
Later, Buddhism arose in India. The influence of the rise of Buddhism on Brahmanism (its predecessor, Vedicism) includes: First, the idea of non-killing has gradually been accepted by the people through the advocacy of Buddhism. This is especially evident in the case of cattle.
Because India is a traditional agricultural region, in an agrarian society, cattle are the most important tool of labor. Brahmanism's use of cattle as sacrifices and as an important source of food naturally harms the agricultural tools of the common people and is bound to be unsupported by the common people. Buddhism, on the other hand, advocates the prohibition of killing, which is undoubtedly protecting cattle. From this point of view, it is clear that Buddhism's propositions are more popular. Second, the spread of Buddhism posed a great challenge to the survival of Brahmanism. In order to meet this challenge, Brahmanism must change itself. Therefore, in order to conform to the popular will, Brahmanism decided to abandon the custom of eating beef. Even, they went a step further and became vegetarians.
Brahmanism was not satisfied with these changes. In turn, it is hoped that whether or not to eat meat and whether to eat beef will be linked to the caste system advocated by Brahmanism to distinguish the hierarchy of human beings: those who eat vegetarians are the purest and noblest, and those who eat beef are the "untouchables" at the bottom of the blasphemy.
In this way, Brahmins distinguish themselves from Buddhists, Jains, and Even Islamists who later entered the South Asian continent and played an important role in Indian history. In this way, diet became a sign of identity; the cow became a magic weapon for Brahmanism to maintain its noble position. Under the propaganda of Brahmanism, cattle were endowed with more and more noble attributes, and the "cow worship" culture of Indian society naturally became popular.
How successful is India's "bull-worshipping" propaganda? In the late Mughal Empire, British colonists invaded the South Asian continent, and India gradually became a British colony. In 1857, the British colonial authorities in India decided to replace the old rifle used by the original Indian soldiers with a new type of rifle.
However, the problem with the new rifle was that the soldiers had to bite through the cartridge wrapper coated with butter and lard with their mouths beforehand. The Indian soldiers could not accept this, believing that the British colonists were deliberately hurting their religious feelings.
As a result, the anti-British sentiment of Indian soldiers was unprecedentedly high, and millions of people rose up, and finally the three-year-old Indian national uprising broke out. This incident has also become an important milestone in awakening the consciousness of Indian national independence.
Finally, in 1947, India broke away from British colonial rule and won its independence. Nehru, India's first post-independence prime minister, worked to transform India into a secular state and abolish some religious practices and beliefs. But even in this case, India's worship and belief in cattle has not been greatly affected.
By the 1980s and 1990s, the secularist Indian Congress Party gradually lost popular support. The religious Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gradually became the ruling party in India.
The BJP upholds the religious beliefs of Hindus and places great emphasis on the sanctity of cattle. Under the BJP, many of India's states passed stricter laws than before to protect cattle. Some states are even preparing to convict cattle slaughter as murder and sentence them to life in prison.
As we all know, even today, India still has a large population concentrated in cramped slums and does not have access to basic health care. However, the Indian government is thinking about improving the quality of life of cattle.
In January 2019, the chief minister of the Indian Party Uttar Pradesh announced that it would increase the "Cow Welfare Tax" and use the money to build shelters for cattle. What's more, India has built "nursing homes" specifically for injured and sick cattle. It can be said that the "welfare guarantee" that cattle receive in Indian society is better than that of many Indian people.
However, these things are taken for granted in the eyes of Indians. In Indian folklore, cattle breeding is prevalent. Cattle-keeping families will build a house for cattle to live in the same way as people, and if the family is poor and cannot build a house for the cattle alone, then it is better for people to sleep in the open air than to let the cattle sleep in the house.
In addition to providing excellent material conditions for cattle, Indians are also concerned about the "mental health" of cattle. In 2014, an Indian held a lavish wedding for his cow, which was estimated to cost as much as 100,000 yuan.
After talking about the Indian worship of cattle, let's go back to the cow urine prevention mentioned at the beginning. There is a tradition in India where Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and good fortune, comes to a herd of cows and asks to live with them. But the cows were so disgusted with Lakshmi's fickle personality that they refused her request.
After repeated entreaties from Lakshmi, the cows finally promised her that she could live in her own. In the Hindu scriptures, there is also a saying that the person who kills the cow must wash it with the cow's urine.
From these statements, it can be seen that with the worship of cattle by Indians, all products on cows, including cow urine and cow droppings, have become sacred things. In fact, in traditional medicine in India, cow urine has become an important medicine. In the life of the ancient Indians, there was a miracle drug called "five-flavor nectar", which was extremely expensive. The so-called "five flavors" refer to milk, cream, ghee, cow urine and cow dung.
Indians believe that taking this medicine will not only cure all diseases, but also immortality. The idea that cow urine can cure diseases has continued in India. In 2013, an Indian manufacturer of "medicines" raised three hundred cows and then distilled the medicine from cow urine. Indians are eager for the drug, the Times of India says, and even well-educated people believe that regular drinking of the drug prevents disease.
The concept of disease prevention and treatment of cattle urine is not only at the folk level. In the 1970s, there was a prime minister in India named Desai. During his visit to the United States, he excitedly told Americans in a televised speech that he was over eighty years old, but still in good spirits. The reason for this is that he drinks cow urine every day, which he believes is the most nutritious of all the drinks in the world.
In February 2020, the current Modi government also adopted a plan to "strengthen the scientific use of the main products of indigenous dairy cows through research", in which more than a dozen ministries and commissions of the state cooperate in the research and development of cattle by-products, including cow urine and cow dung. The Modi government's research goal is to develop treatment options for cancer and diabetes using these by-products as raw materials.
From the history of India's worship of cattle and the use of cow urine into medicine, the use of cow urine to prevent and treat the new crown is indeed within the cognitive range of Indians, and their practices have attracted incredible attention from all over the world, but they are not joking with the world. Cow urine is a wisp of sustenance and hope for them in their predicament.
In fact, excessive cattle worship has brought many problems to Indian society. For example, some people have vividly said: "If India does not eat the old cow, the old cow will eat India."
An Indian information minister once confessed: "The existence of a large number of livestock is not so much a wealth as a burden for our land resources." "
Because Hindus don't eat beef and oppose the slaughter of cattle. Initially, the target of slaughter was cows. Later, however, this object was expanded to include bulls, calves, etc. As a result, India has produced a large number of stray old cattle, which are eroding the living space of Indians.
At the same time, the worship of cattle among Hindus itself stems from religious "competition", and to this day, Hindus and other believers, especially Islamists, continue to fight over the issue of cattle. Because the basic food of Islamists is beef, there are also a large number of Muslims who are engaged in cattle slaughtering.
The existence of the cattle problem has undoubtedly deepened the religious estrangement between the two sides. Some extreme Hindus often violently protect cattle in order to protect them from harm. Once, in Gujarat, several so-called "untouchables" were beaten by "cattle guards" simply because they were suspected of "slaughtering cattle".
The incident later caused a strong reaction in India, and the protests lasted for nearly a month, and finally Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to come forward and publicly condemn the "violent cattle protection" activities. These are the real problems that cattle bring to India.
Now, as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on people, the eyes of the people in the depths of the waters are turning to cattle and cow urine, and even the government is encouraging such behavior. While this is in line with the beliefs of Hindus, who make up the majority of India's population, it is ultimately too far from science and too far from achieving epidemic control. In the end, it can only bring bigger problems to Indian society...
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Yang Yishuang, "Challenges Facing India's Pluralistic Society from the Perspective of "Violent Cattle Protection"", World Knowledge, No. 18, 2016
Wang Qingfeng, "Indian Sacred Cow, Caste Politics and Sectarian Conflict", Journal of Hubei University for Nationalities (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), No. 1, 2019
Marvin Harris and Jia Zhongyi, "The Sacred Cow of India", Journal of Primitive Ethnographic Culture, No. 3, 2009