Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c5.119

c5.119

This naturally leads us to notice the breeding and rearing of live-stock and dairy farming—both akin to agriculture. Animals are of great use for purposes of cultivation as well as of draught. Cattle were of course a highly esteemed form of wealth,⁶ and their tending and rearing was an essential concern to the people for, "upon kine depend men."⁷ Cattle were rubbed with oil⁸ and supplied with necessary food, usually grass and some kind of fodder.⁹ Knowledge of cattle and their habits of eating and drinking were patent to the people.¹⁰ The method of dairy-work may not have been quite scientific and economical, the hygiene of the cattle may have been neglected, but people did try to improve upon their work in this direction.¹¹ Hence it was that the supply of milk and its four products viz. curds, buttermilk, butter and ghee, was abundant¹² and so the people could get the most nutritious kind of food easily.