The Gujarat Government has stipulated
life-imprisonment for slaughtering cow in its recent amendment to Animal
Preservation Bill. It has also made the offence non-bailable. Lot of dust may
be raised over this amendment, but what I intend to write here is that in THIS COUNTRY killing a cow was considered as inviting
a greater retribution than just imprisonment in the current life.
Cow was considered as wealth in this country. Infact
wealth was measured in the number of cows, but killing them amounts to blow to
Dharma. When Dharma is on the decline, the cow is personified as having lost a
leg. In the present Kali yuga the cow is said to have 3 legs broken and is
limping on only one leg. In such a dire situation, the one who protects the cow
sheds off his paapa karma.
Killing a cow was something unthinkable even a few
decades ago. Every native citizen of this country, even if he is a Muslim or
Christian had come down in the lineage of people who thought that killing a cow
is similar to killing one’s mother or father. It was considered as the worst
crime. In the olden inscriptions on donations to temples, the last line used to
read like this :- “the one who stops or spoils or
usurps this donation must suffer the karmic effect that accrues to one who had
killed a cow or his father or mother.” This shows that cow-slaughter attracts the
worst karmic effect for the slaughterer.
It was mainly on the issue of cow slaughter that untouchability
began. People kept a distance of 64 feet from the one who had killed a cow. Even
if someone had killed a cow by accident, he had to go to the Ganges to do
purifying ceremonies. Until then he had carry a stick tied to cow’s tail to
show the offence he had done. No one would have any truck with him until he
finishes the purifying acts. This is for
the one had unintentionally killed a cow.
Intentional killing of cow attracts retribution in
the form of suffering in many future births. This is not just a religious
thought or confined to Hindu religion. This is a rational idea of what one does
comes back to one. In this Universe everything happens in a cause and effect
cycle. Killing a life that is not a threat to one but which gives life –growing
food to one, would definitely attract retributive effect. Let me list some of
them here.
· The
person who regularly kills cows would be born as a cow repeatedly only to be
killed again and again.
· Intentional
killing of any animal would make the person suffer from septic wounds in his
body. He will develop ulcerous swellings in his body called Vrana roga. In
today’s parlance this is known as cancer.
· Slaughterer
of cow will be born with incurable skin diseases according to Karma Vipaka.
Infact Karma Vipaka says injury to the cow and not killing, as it was
unthinkable to kill a cow in our country.
· One
of the karmic causes of leprosy is killing of any living creature.
· Even
for injuring the eye of the cow or blowing dust into the eye of the cow, one will
be born blind in his next birth, according to Prasna Marga.
These karmic effects are irremediable. Only when a
person keeps the cow on par with his mother, can he rationalise why he should
not kill the cow. Any harm done to any creature begets harm in return. Harm
done to cow begets the harm that is equal to the harm done to one’s mother.
This rationale must be inculcated in every person right from childhood.
