கோமயம் எவ்வளவு புனிதமாக நினைக்கப்படுகிறது என்பதற்கு அநேகச் சான்றுகள் உண்டு. உதாரணத்துக்கு ஒன்று சொல்கிறேன். ஸந்நியாசிக்கு அக்னி ஸம்பந்தம் கூடாது என்ற விதியை ரொம்பவும் கண்டிப்பாகப் பின்பற்றுகிற ஸாதுக்கள் உண்டு. அவர்கள் அக்னி மூட்டிச் சமைத்த ஆஹாரம் எதையும் புஜிக்க மாட்டார்கள். அப்படிப்பட்டவர்களில் ஒரு பிரிவினர் விறகு, கரி மூட்டாமல் முழுக்கவும் பசுஞ்சாணி விரட்டியிலேயே அக்னி மூட்டி அதிலே சமைத்ததென்றால் அப்போது தோஷமில்லை என்று அதை புஜிக்கிற வழக்கத்தைக் கைக்கொண்டிருக்கிறார்கள். பசுவுக்கு இருக்கப்பட்ட புனிதத்தன்மையால்தான் இப்படி அதன் மலத்துக்குங்கூடப் பெருமை இருக்கிறது. – ஜகத்குரு ஸ்ரீ சந்திரசேகரேந்திர சரஸ்வதி ஸ்வாமிகள்
There are innumerable proofs to reiterate how sacred cow dung is being considered. I’ll cite one as an example. There are Sadhus (Sages) who strictly adhere to the principle that an ascetic should have no contact with fire whatsoever. They wouldn’t consume any food cooked with the help of fire. A sect of people among such ascetics has brought themselves to relax this rule that instead of using wood and coal, if the food has been cooked by using only cow dung cakes alone to make fire, it becomes fit enough to be consumed by them. It is because of the divine quality of the cow that even its excretion possesses such an honour. – Jagadguru Chandrasekharendra Saraswathy Swamigal
Categories: Deivathin Kural, Golden Quotes
yes sir,definitely interested;please talk;better still WRITE in this very same space.saubhagyam
Jai Ma
Pranam
Sri Sri Mahaswamigal is Sri Rama, SriSri Jagajjanani, prabhuH prabhu, shriiyashcapi bhaved agrAH kiirtyaH kiirtishca kShamA kShamA.
By introducing a topic, He insures many radiating branches from that topic, so that His children can gain some more insights into the depths of of our Holy Matrbhumi. Example, Sri Seshan, recently appointed head of the Election Commission, was asked by Mahaswami to go and read the description of rajdharma or some such inscribed on the walls of an old temple. From that exposure, Sri Seshan derived the ideas that have influenced the conduct of our vast democratic process. How amazing, and yet, how natural, is Mahaswami’s hand in so many things that are vital to our matrbhumi: subrahmanyam Swamy in international relations, Seshan, so many other matters yet to be revealed to us, Mahaswami’s injunction to plant AGATHI trees, about which we need to discuss at length, and this comment on govara, which is an INEXHAUSTIBLE TOPIC. Not kidding, at all.
Entire specialties on dairy nutrition have subdisciplines, such as heifer nutrition, calf, lactating cows, etc. Such specialization is the rule in USA. In India , too, as we enter commercial dairy farming, cows will become units of profits. Economies of scale and factory farms will evolve, and they have already, Aarey Milk Colony!
The sheer number of cows made redundant is frightening. What is to be done? Can all be kept in goshalas? This is a very serious question deserving a serious systemic solution. An Indian milk breed starts calving at approximately 4 years of age. She averages 5.5 calvings, can bear as many as 12, and can live for 20 years or more. Generally, 2 or 3 calvings end her commercial usefulness. Then what? We want to eat tons of butter, etc. How much are we willing to pay for it? Out of 7 billion lbs of butter produced per year worldwide, Indians consume a very large fraction, means very large numbers of cows and buffaloes, 45% and 55% of each type. Buffaloes have almost 500 days between calves, and 280-300 lactating days. They are usually disposed off. Think about this whenever you are served white butter!!!
If temples, and bhaktas were to INSIST ON HERDS FOLLOWING A NO SLAUGHTER, NO CULL POLICY FROM BIRTH TO DEATH OF FEMALE COWS, then the price of all milk products would be 15X the present, at minimum. And what about the males, if we cannot do embryo transplant and selective gender choice?
Anyway, getting back to the Dung issue, diet and milk production is involved and actually a huge subject, years long in teaching, that I relish but need to condense here.
All cattle breeds are fermentation vats, the cellulosic materials in plant material ingested being broken up by special types of microbes that have the ability to break down cellulose. Cellulose in nothing but glucose molecules arranged like chairs, front of one chair touching back of another chair. Imagine long lines of such chairs. Imagine each line to be a pencil. Now imagine several pencils in a bundle tied by rubber bands. This shape of the cellulose molecule makes it very difficult to digest by enzymes! Only very few can do the job. When microbes in a cow’s stomach break down the cellulose, heat is produced and needs to be dissipated to the environment outside the cow. The efficiency of heat exchange is proportional to the difference in the temperatures inside and outside the cow. Outside temps are very different is Rayalaseema and a Swiss Alpine pasture!
This makes heat exchange a very fundamental issue in the evolution of Indian and European milk breeds. It affects the types of diets they can consume with ease, and the proportion of gut mass to body mass. This has a direct effect in the type of govara produced. Did you know that for a proper vibhuti, the best govara is one that has not touched the ground, second best, being that from a forested land, etc. Whoever drew up these injunctions, could not be working with European breeds, since their natural diet and type of govara is impossible to catch by hand, or to recover from the ground in a useful fashion. Govara could NEVER BECOME A USEFUL MULTIPURPOSE MATERIAL, a true blessing, in the European civilizations, meaning the North European and Alpine dairy civilizations.
Lush grassy pastures mixed with herbaceous legumes combined with the relatively large bodies of MOST, not all, European milk breeds, allow the cow with her mowing tongue to ingest 75 lbs -100 lbs of very moist, high protein [15-23%] green forage per day. Her govara is very loose. Today, she is fed a diet that is part forage, part dried hay or silage [ fermented green grass or legume], and concentrates that include bone, blood meal, hair, horn meal in small percentages, poultry manure up to 3-5 %, small amounts of urea, fish meal, corn and soy meal in signifcant amounts. Her govara is foul smelling, loose, unformed. You cannot transform that into fuel, or any item of sacramental use. NOT. It is NOT GOVARA. Mettur Swami spoke about the Western cow not being fit for XYZ, only the Indian cow. I don’t exactly understand what he really meant. Was it the diet, nimitta dosha, or was it jati dosha?
Indian cows evolved to have different gut mass; body mass. Give less milk by volume, with higher milk fat, and the African Ndama breed the highest milk fat of all cows, I think. You can guess why. Indian cows are like the Bhadawari buffalo. They are not obligate grazers. Nili-Ravi and Murrah buffalo and the Deccan plateau buffalo are pure grazers; their govara is less firm unless eating some dry straw/residues.
When the Nili/Murrahs are crossed with the Bhadawari, the offspring are unable to process the bushy plants of the ravines like the Bhadawari. Indian cow breeds like the Ongole consume a lot of bushy plants leaves and twigs; can graze in forest and scrub lands selecting various species of woody plants, not just grasses and forbs. It is these woody plants and their leaves, along with the straw and dry residues fed to our cattle that make their govara so special. There are no concentrates used in traditional diets save for oilseed cakes, that are also very rich in polyphenols [seed coats!]
We fed mango, jackfruit, bamboo, and many tree leaves along with the tender twigs attached to them. These all contain LIGNINS and many other complex polyphenols. When the urine turned a bright orange or deep mahogany, then we reduced the leaves of this type, used more of other types. Sri Mahaswami spoke of Agathi leaves, Sesbania grandiflora. Some day we should speak about perennial forage species, indicated by Sri Mahaswami, that work as multipurpose trees of extraordinary value.
Lignins/polyphenols are called kaShAya in Ayurveda. They have a positive effect on stomach parasites, and general dryness of the govara. You will see the Indian cattle govara shaped by each peristaltic wave of the colon, a coiled coil shape. There is specific smell of the govara due to the gut microflora enfendered by this diet. The dung does not smell disgusting, but there is a faint resinous quality entirely missing in cows fed grain and animal protein based concentrates, supplemented by a few lbs of C4 forage grasses like Sorghum, Hybrid Napier, etc.
This fragrant govara we use to wash down our homes, mixed with clay slurry. I remember the beautiful shuchi of our mud home, in days past. Here, US kitchens never become clean, despite all their cleansers. Grease accumulates, filth gets trapped by grease. After every meal, 2x/day, our humble stoves were washed down with clay slip, made beautifully clean and hygienic for all purposes, sacred and profane. We use this govara water to purify any area considered to be polluted by some incident, including a bad person coming and sitting there for idle talk.
This govara dries beautifully due to its high phenolic/lignin content. We make lovely cow patties, once seen all over Bangabhumi, with the marks of the five fingers, whereas in the north, they make loaves. In Uttara Kannada, the few agnihotris remaining, use the specific properties of the GOVARA, to make cakes, that they place in their 5 fires, at precise intervals. You can see HOW VITAL it is that the DIET, cow breed and GOVARA TYPE be kept constant for the AGNIHOTRA to remain intact. Sri Sri Mahaswami would have had a lot to say.
Each evening, we burn this dried govara and place incense, that is used in sandhya arati, and taken to each room in the house. we roast wheat cakes directly on the slow-burning fires of these dung cakes, and the taste is ambrosial, along with roasted vegetables.
The aroma of the burning govara is wonderful, since the chemicals within it are called “aromatic” compounds. They are chemically called aromatics, and they are aromatic, too, by nature, after passage through the gut. Not hugely, as in perfume, but in a diffuse, smoky way.
Once we start feeding our gomata concentrates other than oilcakes we run into problems in terms of poor cow health, and poor govara. Gut microflora changes, and virulence factors come into play in gut biofilms. That is why constant use of certain antibiotics to suppress the switching on of these virulence genes by microbes who are getting upset with each other. Any microbial colony or biofilm is like a city, where each inhabitant has his address and allotted space. Once you exceed that space and begin to elbow your neighbor, s.he switches on some nasty chemical compounds to deter you. These are called virulence factors, and they also impact cow health.
Amounts of lignin do affect absorption of certain nutrients and are said to decrease milk yield. But in the race to extract every last drop of milk from a cow, we have created a satanic world without any check or balance to destroy the lives and life quality of gomata. I am sorry, I get too carried away by this subject. Even those who are trying to preserve Indian breeds focus on milk yield, to the detriment of many other important traits, like heat tolerance.
Cows bred for milk yield above 30-40 lbs/day cannot walk comfortably. They also suffer from obstetrical problems. Such cows have a shelf life of 2.5 calvings. They become mothers by age 23 months, compared to 4 years for most Indian breeds. Because of exaggerated udders and teats, when sitting down or lying, they manage to tear their teats with their hooves, leading to immediate culling. 23% of the heifers are culled before first calving. I am using data from USDA HANDBOOKs. This can be verified. Mastitis in US herds range from 25-100%. We have a satanic dairy industry in the US and in India, we are desperate to copy all this, become Americans, introduce American way of life, consumption, outlook. Our land cannot sustain such.
Learning about govara, diet, Indian milk breeds, physiology, should begin in elementary school. Practical biology is more interesting, especially in rural areas, where I have found lots of people asking me about how plants work, their anatomy, etc. I wish there could be quality distance learning for all, free of cost. Indians, minors included, now watch porn free of cost, but cannot access proper information about cows, diets, physiology, plant anatomy, even when very interested.
Pranam
Jai Ma
Pranam
Not only the adhyatmika level Sri Sri Mahaswamigal has revealed to us, but also in the adhibhautika plane, the nature of govara is literally Go-VARA, a blessing from the cow. Indeed, all bovines, be it buffalo, yak, mithun, offer this blessing.
To use an example to illustrate our own circumstances, since Indians become highly sensitive when anything Western is invoked, the American West could NOT have been settled without the pioneers who travelled by wagon and on foot having access to the “buffalo chips”, dried buffalo go-vara, in the great plains where there were no trees, no wood to use.
Bovines eat available grass, scrub, etc. in even cold deserts like the American Far West, and especially, Tibet, and bring back to humankind accessible fuel, fertilizer, and building material. Nowhere is this more significant than in the scant pastures of the high Himalayas, Tibet and beyond. Sheep and goat dung cannot fill the roles the bovine dung does. By the way, yak and cattle interbreed with ease, and there is an 8 generation cross that will restore fertility to the cross. Yak, mithun, and Indian and European cows share complex relatedness, and could be considered a species complex, rather than totally distinct species. Not the place to argue cattle genetics.
Would be grateful if you would view this video that illustrates the extraordinary importance of yak dunk in the arid plateau region of Tibet. We can grasp what “blessing”, “vara” truly means. Indeed, in places like the semi-arid zones of Bharat Mata, where rains are often unreliable, e.g. parts of Andhra Pradesh, cows form the ONLY reliable guarantee of food. They will convert the forage available in forests that used to exist, degraded lands and available forage anywhere into human food and govara, regardless of the failure of rains. This fact is lost upon some, not all, Western writers and the Indian clowns mesmerized by their thoughts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfpTHOhExGI
BTW, the dung of cattle fed the western DAIRY diet is completely different from cattle grazing in forest and scrub land. Would be most happy to talk about the difference in composition, and cattle digestive function, with these different diets, if anyone is interested. Also WHY Indian GO MATA should NEVER be offered DRY RICE STRAW as frequently seen, or green forage grasses carelessly thrown on the ground.
Namaskar