XVII.
COW DUNG AND COW URINE IN RELIGION.
The sacrificial value of cow dung and cow urine throughout India and Thibet is much greater than the reader might be led to infer from the brief citation already noted from Max Müller.
“Hindu merchants in Bokhara now lament loudly at the sight of a piece of cow’s flesh, and at the same time mix with their food, that it may do them good, the urine of a sacred cow, kept in that place.”—(Erman, “Siberia,” London, 1848, vol. i. p. 384.)
Picart narrates that the Brahmins fed grain to a sacred cow, and afterward searched in the ordure for the sacred grains, which they picked out whole, drying and administering them to the sick, not merely as a medicine, but as a sacred thing.[32]
Not only among the people of the lowlands, but among those of the foot-hills of the Himalayas as well, do these rites find place; “the very dung of the cow is eaten as an atonement for sin, and its urine is used in worship.”—(Notes on the Hill Tribes of the Neilgherries, Short, Trans. Ethnol. Society, London, 1868, p. 268.)
“The greatest, or, at any rate, the most convenient of all purifiers is the urine of a cow; ... Images are sprinkled with it. No man of any pretensions to piety or cleanliness would pass a cow in the act of staling without receiving the holy stream in his hand and sipping a few drops.... If the animal be retentive, a pious expectant will impatiently apply his finger, and by judicious tickling excite the grateful flow.”—(Moor’s “Hindu Pantheon,” London, 1810, p. 143.)
See, also, note from Forlong, under “Initiation,” p. 164.
“It may be noted that, according to Lajarde, ‘cow’s-water’ originally meant rain-water, the clouds being spoken of as cows. I give this for what it is worth. Your collection of facts goes strongly against the explanation.”—(Personal letter from Prof. W. Robertson Smith, dated Christ College, Cambridge, England, August 11, 1888.)
Speaking of the sacrifice called Poojah, Maurice says: “The Brahman prepares a place, which is purified with dried cow-dung, with which the pavement is spread, and the room is sprinkled with the urine of the same animal.”—(Maurice, “Indian Antiquities,” London, 1800, vol. i. p. 77.)
“As in India, so in Persia, the urine of the cow is used in ceremonies of purification, during which it is drunk.”—(“Zoölogical Mythology,” Angelo de Gubernatis, London, 1872, vol. i. p. 95, quoting from Anquétil du Pérron, “Zendavesta,” ii. p. 245.)