A History of Sanskrit Literature c7.134

c7.134

The cow, however, is the animal which figures most largely in the *Rigveda*. This is undoubtedly due to the important position, resulting from its pre-eminent utility, occupied by this animal even in the remotest period of Indian life. The beams of dawn and the clouds are cows. The rain-cloud, personified under the name of Pṛiçni, "the speckled one," is a cow, the mother of the Storm-gods. The bountiful clouds on which all wealth in India depended, were doubtless the prototypes of the many-coloured cows which yield all desires in the heaven of the blest described by the *Atharva-veda*, and which are the forerunners of the "Cow of Plenty" (*Kāmaduh*) so familiar to post-Vedic poetry. The earth itself is often spoken of by the poets of the *Rigveda* as a cow. That this animal already possessed a sacred character is shown by the fact that one Rishi addresses a cow as Aditi and a goddess, impressing upon his hearers that she should not be slain. *Aghnyā* ("not to be killed"), a frequent designation of the cow in the *Rigveda*, points in the same direction. Indeed the evidence of the *Avesta* proves that the sanctity of this animal goes back even to the Indo-Iranian period. In the *Atharva-veda* the worship of the cow is fully recognised, while the *Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa* emphasises the evil consequences of eating beef. The sanctity of the cow has not only survived in India down to the present day, but has even gathered strength with the lapse of time. The part played by the greased cartridges in the Indian Mutiny is sufficient to prove this statement. To no other animal has mankind owed so much, and the debt has been richly repaid in India with a veneration unknown in other lands. So important a factor has the cow proved in Indian life and thought, that an exhaustive account of her influence from the earliest times would form a noteworthy chapter in the history of civilisation.