Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: Deccan Herald
Date: December 20, 2001
Under the pretext of disseminating
true knowledge about the past to young, impressionable school children,
a perverse assault has been launched upon the religious sensitivities of
the Hindu community. Marxist historians allege that ancient Hindus ate
beef, that this is recorded in their sacred scriptures, and that this should
be taught to school children. The Hindu prohibition on cow slaughter, they
say, is a more recent development and Hindus are shying away from this
truth because it is intimately linked with their sense of identity.
A Marxist specialist on ancient
India, ignorant in both Vedic and Panini 's Sanskrit, claims that the Shatapatha
Brahmana and Vasistha Dharmasutra clearly state that guests were honoured
by serving beef. She also cites archaeological evidence as reported by
H.D. Sankalia and B.B. Lal. While the lady thinks her evidence is irrefutable,
I have decided to pick up the gauntlet.
To begin with, the Shatapatha Brahmana
is Yajnavalkya's commentary on the Yajur Veda, and not a revealed text.
As for the Vasistha Dharmasutra, the legendary Sanskritist, late P.V. Kane,
said, "beyond the name Vasistha there is hardly anything special in the
dharmasutra to connect it with the Rgveda." Kane also added, "grave doubts
have been entertained about the authenticity of the whole of the text of
the Vas.Dh.S. as the mss. (manuscripts) contain varying numbers of chapters
from 6 to 30, and as the text is hopelessly corrupt in several places.
many verses.bear the impress of a comparatively late age." Kane tentatively
places this text between 300-100 B.C., that is, long after the end of the
Vedic age.
According to archaeologists, the
early Vedic age tentatively falls between the fourteen century BC to the
first millennium BC. The later Vedic period lies between 1000 BC to 600-700
BC. But if we go by astronomical dating of some of the hymns, we get a
period of 7000 BC for a portion of the Vedas.
The honest question, however, is
whether the Vedas offer evidence about cow slaughter and beef-eating, and
if not, how the controversy arose in the first place. A few clarifications
are in order before we proceed. The word 'cow' (gau), for instance, is
used throughout the Vedas in diverse senses, and, depending on the context
of the verse, could mean the animal cow, waters, sun-rays, learned persons,
Vedic verses, or Prithvi (earth as Divine Mother).
Then, Vedic society was heterogeneous,
pluralistic, and non-vegetarian. In theory, it is possible that the cow
was killed and eaten. The fact, however, is that throughout the Vedas the
cow is called a non-killable animal, or "aghnya." According to "An Encyclopaedic
Dictionary of Sanskrit on Historical Principles" (Vol. I, Deccan College,
Poona), "aghnya" means "not to be killed or violated" and is used for cows
and for waters in the presence of which oaths were taken.
The Rig and Sama Veda call the cow
"aghnya" and "Aditi", ie. not to be murdered (Rig 1-64-27; 5-83-8; 7-68-9;
1-164-40; 8-69-2; 9-1-9; 9-93-3; 10-6-11; 10-87-16). They extol the cow
as un-killable, un-murderable, whose milk purifies the mind and keeps it
free from sin. Verse 10-87-16 prescribes severe punishment for the person
who kills a cow. The Atharva Veda recommends beheading (8-3-16) for such
a crime; the Rig Veda advocates expulsion from the kingdom (8-101-15).
Hence, it seems unlikely that the
cow would be slaughtered to entertain guests, as claimed by Marxist historians.
But before coming to any conclusion, the archaeological evidence should
also be examined. Archaeologists have excavated bones of cattle in huge
quantity, "cattle" is a collective noun which includes the cow, bull, buffalo,
nilgai and all other bovine animals. Nowhere in the world can experts differentiate
between the bones of cows and other cattle recovered from excavations.
There are good reasons for this
difficulty. Most of the bones found are not whole carcasses, but large
pieces of limbs. Experts feel that these could be the remains of animals
that died naturally and were skinned for their hide and bones. Ancient
man used bones to make knives and other tools; the splintered bones found
could be part of the tool-making exercise. In all honesty, therefore, cattle
bone finds do not prove cow slaughter or the eating of cow meat, especially
when all literary evidence points in the opposite direction.
There has been talk about cut-marks
on the bones. But apart from tool-making, even if a tanner skins dead cattle
for the hide, he will inflict cut marks on the carcass. Scientifically,
it is not possible to say if the marks on the bones are ante-mortem or
post-mortem. This can be determined only where the body is intact (animal
or human), by analyzing blood vessels, tissue, rigor mortis and other factors.
Fortunately, there is now clinching
evidence why the Marxist claim on cow-flesh rests on false premises. As
already stated, the allegation rests mainly on literary sources and their
interpretation, and we are in a position to trace the source of the mischief
- the Vachaspatyam of Pandit Taranath and his British mentors.
Pandit Taranath, a professor of
grammar at the Calcutta Sanskrit College, compiled a six-volume Sanskrit-to-Sanskrit
dictionary, which is used by scholars to this day. The Vachaspatyam is
a valuable guide for scholars because there are certain words in the samhita
(mantra) section of the Vedas that are not found later in the Puranas.
What most Sanskrit scholars have
failed to notice is that Taranath artfully corrupted the meanings of a
few crucial words of the Vedic samhita to endorse the meaning given by
Max Muller in his translation of the Vedas. Swami Prakashanand Saraswati
has exposed this beautifully in "The True History and the Religion of India,
A Concise Encyclopedia of Authentic Hinduism" (Motilal Banarsidass).
The British idea was that Max Muller
would translate the Rig Veda "in such a scornful manner that Hindus themselves
should begin to reproach their own religion of the Vedas," while a Hindu
pandit would "compile an elaborate Sanskrit dictionary that should exhibit
disgraceful meanings of certain words of the Vedic mantras." As Hindus
would not question a dictionary by a Hindu pandit, the British would be
able to claim that whatever Max Muller wrote about the Vedas was according
to the dictionary of the Hindus.
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati focuses
on two words - goghn and ashvamedh. "Goghn" means a guest who receives
a cow as gift. Panini created a special sutra to establish the rule that
goghn will only mean the receiver of a cow (and will not be used in any
other sense). But Taranath ignored Panini's injunction and wrote that "goghn"
means "the killer of a cow." He similarly converted the ashvamedh yagna
from 'ritual worship of the horse' to the "killing of the horse."
The Swami proves the British hand
in this mischief through the patronage given to Taranath by the Government
of Bengal in 1866, when Lt. Governor Sir Cecil Beadon sanctioned ten thousand
rupees for two hundred copies of his dictionary. This was a king's ransom
in those days, as even in the 1930s the headmaster of a vernacular primary
school received a salary of twenty rupees a month. Today, ten thousand
rupees is the equivalent of two million rupees.
When the basic premise upon which
all modern translations rest is thus knocked off its pedestal, what beef
is left in the theory that Vedic Hindus enjoyed the flesh of the cow? I
rest my case.
