CHAP. X - WORSHIP OF BEASTS

Summary

SECT. I.—The Cow

Brŭmha created the bramhŭns and the cow at the same time: the bramhŭns to read the formulas, and the cow to: afford milk, (clarified butter,) for the burnt-offerings. The gods by partaking of the burnt-offerings are said to enjoy exquisite pleasure, and men by eating clarified butter destroy their, sins. The cow is called the mother of the gods, and is declared by Brŭmha to be a proper object of worship.

The shastrŭ appoints that the images of the gods shall be anointed with milk, curds, clarified butter, cow-dung, and cows' urine, whereby they become free from impurity; and all unclean places are purified with cow-dung. Indeed many bramhŭns do not go out of the house in a morning, till the door-way has been rubbed with cow-dung.

The cow was created on the first of Voishakhŭ, and on this day, or on the second of the moon in Jyolsht'hŭ, she is worshipped annually. No image is used, but the worship is performed in the cow-house before a jar of water. The ceremonies are the same as those before the images of the gods: the prayers are necessarily peculiar to the object worshipped. The officiating bramhŭn, at the close of the service, reads the whole of the Chŭndēē, a poem relating to the wars of Doorga.