Origin of Cow-worship.
The explanation of the origin of cow-worship has been a subject of much controversy. The modern Hindu, if he has formed any distinct ideas at all on the subject, bases his respect for the cow on her value for supplying milk, and for general agricultural purposes. The Panchagâvya, or five products of the cow—milk, curds, butter, urine, and dung—are efficacious as scarers of demons, are used as remedies in disease, and play a very important part in domestic ritual Gaurochana, a bright yellow pigment prepared from the urine or bile of the cow, or, as is said by some, vomited by her or found in her head, is used for making the sectarial mark, and as a sedative, tonic, and anthelmintic. In Bombay it is specially used as a remedy for measles, which is considered to be a spirit disease.[78]
There is, again, something to be said for the theory which finds in these animals tribal totems and fetishes.[79] We have a parallel case among the Jews, where the bull was probably the ancient symbol of the Hyksos, which the Israelites having succeeded them could adopt, especially as it may have been retained in use by their confederates the Midianites; and it appears in the earliest annals of Israel as a token of the former supremacy of Joseph and his tribe, and was subsequently adopted as an image of Iahveh himself.
So, speaking of Egypt, Mr. Frazer writes: “Osiris was regularly identified with the bull Apis of Memphis and the bull Mnevis of Heliopolis. But it is hard to say whether these bulls were embodiments of him as the corn spirit, as the red oxen appear to have been, or whether they were not entirely distinct deities which got fused with Osiris by syncretism. The fact that these two bulls were worshipped by all the Egyptians, seems to put them on a different footing from the ordinary sacred animals, whose cults were purely local. Hence, if the latter were evolved from totems, as they probably were, some other origin would have to be found for the worship of Apis and Mnevis. If these bulls were not originally embodiments of the corn god Osiris, they may possibly be descendants of the sacred cattle worshipped by a pastoral people. If this were so, ancient Egypt would exhibit a stratification of the three great types of religion corresponding to the three great stages of society. Totemism or (roughly speaking) the worship of wild animals—the religion of society in the hunting stage—would be represented by the worship of the local sacred animals; the worship of cattle—the religion of society in the pastoral stage—would be represented by the cults of Apis and Mnevis; and the worship of cultivated plants, especially of corn—the religion of society in the agricultural stage—would be represented by the worship of Osiris and Isis. The Egyptian reverence for cows, which were never killed, might belong either to the second or third of these stages.”[80]
There is some evidence that the same process of religious development may have taken place in India. It is at least significant that the earlier legends represent Indra as created from a cow; and we know that Indra was the Kuladevatâ or family godling of the race of the Kusikas, as Krishna was probably the clan deity of some powerful confederation of Râjput tribes. Cow-worship is thus closely connected with Indra and with Krishna in his forms as the “herdman god,” Govinda or Gopâla; and it is at least plausible to conjecture that the worship of the cow may have been due to the absorption of the animal as a tribal totem of the two races, who venerated these two divinities.
Further, the phallic significance of the worship, in its modern form at least, and its connection with fertility cannot be altogether ignored.[81] This is particularly shown in the close connection between Siva’s bull Nandi and the Lingam worship; and there seems reason to suspect that the bull is intended to intercept the evil influences which in the popular belief are continually emitted from the female principle through the Yonî. As we have already seen, the dread of this form of pollution is universal. Hence when the Lingam is set up in a new village the people are careful in turning the spout of the Yonî towards the jungle, and not in the direction of the roads and houses, lest its evil influence should be communicated to them; and in order still further to secure this object, the bull Nandi is placed sitting as a guardian between the Yonî and the inhabited site.[82]
Cow-worship assumes another form in connection with the theory of transmigration. It has become part of the theory that the soul migrates into the cow immediately preceding its assumption of the human form, and she escorts the soul across the dreaded river Vaitaranî, which bounds the lower world.