We perhaps get a glimpse of totemism in connection with the goat in some of the early Hindu legends. When Parusha, the primeval man, was divided into his male and female parts, he produced all the animals, and the goat was first formed out of his mouth. There is, again, a mystical connection between Agni, the fire god, Brâhmans, and goats, as between Indra, the Kshatriyas, and sheep, Vaisyas and kine, Sûdras and the horse. These may possibly have been tribal totems of the races by whom these animals were venerated.[72] The sheep, as we have already seen, is a totem of the Keriyas. The Aheriyas, a vagrant tribe of the North-Western Provinces, worship Mekhasura or Meshasura in the form of a ram.
Cow and Bull Worship.
But the most famous of these animal totems or fetishes is the cow or bull. According to the school of comparative mythology the bull which bore away Europe from Kadmos is the same from which the dawn flies in the Vedic hymn. He, according to this theory, is “the bull Indra, which, like the sun, traverses the heaven, bearing the dawn from east to west. But the Cretan bull, like his fellow in the Gnossian labyrinth, who devours the tribute children from the city of the Dawn goddess, is a dark and malignant monster, akin to the throttling snake who represents the powers of night and darkness.”[73] This may be so, but the identification of primitive religion, in all its varied phases, with the sun or other physical phenomena is open to the obvious objection that it limits the ideas of the early Aryans to the weather and their dairies, and antedates the regard for the cow to a period when the animal was held in much less reverence than it is at present.
Respect for the Cow Modern.
That the respect for the cow is of comparatively modern date is best established on the authority of a writer, himself a Hindu. “Animal food was in use in the Epic period, and the cow and bull were often laid under requisition. In the Aitareya Brâhmana, we learn that an ox, or a cow which suffers miscarriage, is killed when a king or honoured guest is received. In the Brâhmana of the Black Yajur Veda the kind and character of the cattle which should be slaughtered in minor sacrifices for the gratification of particular divinities are laid down in detail. Thus a dwarf one is to be sacrificed to Vishnu, a drooping-horned bull to Indra, a thick-legged cow to Vâyu, a barren cow to Vishnu and Varuna, a black cow to Pûshan, a cow having two colours to Mitra and Varuna, a red cow to Indra, and so on. In a larger and more important ceremonial, like the Aswamedha, no less than one hundred and eighty domestic animals, including horses, bulls, goats, sheep, deer, etc., were sacrificed.
IMAGE OF THE SACRED BULL.
“The same Brâhmana lays down instructions for carving, and the Gopatha Brâhmana tells us who received the portions. The priests got the tongue, the neck, the shoulder, the rump, the legs, etc., while the master of the house wisely appropriated to himself the sirloin, and his wife had to be satisfied with the pelvis. Plentiful libations of Soma beer were to be allowed to wash down the meat. In the Satapatha Brâhmana we have a detailed account of the slaughter of a barren cow and its cooking. In the same Brâhmana there is an amusing discussion as to the propriety of eating the meat of an ox or cow. The conclusion is not very definite. ‘Let him (the priest) not eat the flesh of the cow and the ox.’ Nevertheless Yajnavalkya said (taking apparently a very practical view of the matter), ‘I, for one, eat it, provided it is tender.’”[74]