If you're looking for literature that will entertain you, "The Myth of the Holy Cow" by DN Jha may not be the best choice. It's not a light read, and the pages are loaded with more facts than a cow's stomach. But, if you're looking for a way to prove your annoying friend wrong when they claim that cows are divine, then this book is perfect for you! DN Jha has dug deep into our ancient texts and has revealed the truth about our ancestors' beliefs. So, go ahead and enjoy your beef fry and parotta without any remorse, because now you know that cows are not holy. Well, at least not according to DN Jha.

The sociology of food is a domain that has piqued my curiosity for a long time. Whenever I travel across India, I delve into the cultural nuances underlying the respective cuisines. Caste has played and continues to play a crucial role in the dietary preferences of Indians. No matter how hard we try to downplay it, the fact remains that food is intertwined with caste in India. In any multicultural society, dietary practices are always sectarian, region-specific, or community-based. Yet, there is one aspect of Indian food culture that is unique to India and not prevalent around the world: the purity and impurity aspects attached to food. Notably, anthropologist Mary Douglas observed that the concepts of pure and impure in the Indian context extend beyond food, even to drinking water, where one avoids touching the lips to the glass.

This phenomenon of purity and impurity is unique for another reason: the division of meat-eating in India is drawn along a line between those who eat beef and those who consume all other meats except beef. The latter group argues that cows are considered holy in their religion, but it remains a matter of debate as to how and when the cow became a sacred animal. This book answers the above question by drawing on references from the Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Puranic verses, the Ayurvedic texts, shastras, and sutras, as well as Buddhist edicts and literature. The fact that ancient North Indians (ANI), belonging to the pastoral group, performed yagnas by sacrificing thousands of cows is acknowledged even by present-day scholars of Sanskrit and Vedas. In this book, Prof. DN Jha presents multiple references from the Ramayana where cow and deer meat was considered a common form of ritual, sacrifice or food.

The Sangam literature concerning the ancient South Indians (ASI) includes words such as 'Un' (meat), 'Thu,' 'Thasai' (flesh), 'Thadi,' 'Ninam' (fat), 'Pulal' (dried meat with smell/dried salt-fish), 'Vidakkudai,' and 'Muri' (removed flesh) to denote the dietary practices in ancient Tamizhakam. In fact, numerous references to meat-eating, even by the priestly classes, were found in the poems written by Kabilar, a prolific poet of the Sangam era.

Though the trend of performing yagnas by sacrificing cows and consuming their meat continued throughout the history of the subcontinent, scholars argue that the cessation of these practices occurred after the arrival of Buddhism and Jainism, which emphasized ahimsa. However, the author points out that even Buddhists consumed three different types of meat on occasions, and King Ashoka, a Buddhist ruler, did not include cows in the list of animals prohibited for slaughtering, as mentioned in one of his edicts. This decision was due to his commitment to the priestly classes of his day.

The dynamics of superiority changed with the arrival of Jainism, which forced the priestly class to give up meat sacrifice to position themselves one step ahead in the hierarchy. This theory is well-accepted and found to be true by many scholars for a simple reason: the Manusmriti, the legal code of, imposes no punishment for killing cows while simultaneously condoning meat eating on occasion. At no point during this time was the cow either defied or considered sacred. Hence, it is crucial to note that the sanctity of the cow was established only during the 4th century AD under the Gupta dynasty.

Shruti Ganapatye, in her book ‘Who Will Bell The Cow?,’ has succinctly documented the ‘cow politics’ in India that emerged during the 1857 revolt when anti-colonial sentiments intensified due to the use of cow fat (and also pork fat) to grease rifles. Today, 'cow politics' remains central to political issues in the Hindi belt. However, the fact remains that India is the largest exporter of beef globally, and the majority of Indians are meat-eaters (beef is especially relished in Goa, the South and North East). A tenet of liberal democracy lies in the commitment to ensuring basic freedoms, and that freedom includes 'food sovereignty.' It is the right of people to choose what type of food they want to eat and how and where they obtain that food. However, the concept of purity and impurity attached to food in India often leads to stigmatization and social exclusion.

If we aim to ensure food sovereignty, where people don’t feel bound by illusory norms, imaginary customs and irrational restrictions of a certain sect while eating, it is crucial to demystify the long-standing lies related to food that have been propagated.

This has obviously been heavily researched as evidenced by the extensive references. Reads much more like an essay than a book. There are just so many examples for each point that the point gets quite convoluted and lost making the thread of the book quite hard to follow, but definitely an interesting concept to argue against why cows should be revered as holy in Hinduism.

Yes, The book is called "The Myth of holy cow", and 200 odd pages of the book bear testimony to it.
It is written like a thesis. Motivation for reading this book will be, to find answers rather than for pleasure.


Quote from the book : "Atho annam via gauh" - Taittiriya Brahmana

This book is banned as blasphemous in India; it argues that the sanctity of the cow in Hinduism is a relatively late development dating back no further than the end of the first millennium CE, well after Hinduism's sacred texts were committed to writing, and cites examples of cows being sacrificed well into the twentieth century. It's well-referenced and on the whole convincing to this non-expert (I took the equivalent of one undergraduate module on Hinduism). The main weakness, so far as I could detect, is that Jha does not always clearly distinguish between buffalo and cows, which some other authors think were historically treated differently in Hinduism for complex reasons to do with caste and race.

Scholar's work. Baba Sahebs note at end is gem.

"The image of the cow projected by Indian textual traditions, especially the Brahmanical-Dharmasastric works, over the centuries is polymorphic. Its story through the millennia is full of inconsistencies and has not always been in conformity with dietary practices current in society. It was killed but the killing was not killing. When it was not slain, mere remembering the old practice of butchery satisfied the brahmanas. Its five products including faeces and urine have been considered pure but not its mouth. Yet through these incongruous attitudes the Indian cow has struggled its way to sanctity.

But the holiness of the cow is elusive. For there has never been a cow-goddess, nor any temple in her honour. Nevertheless the veneration of this animal has come to be viewed as a characteristic trait of modern day non-existent monolithic ‘Hinduism’ bandied about by the Hindutva forces."

somewhat speculative but interesting

This is a fascinating book, which I recently came across more-or-less by chance. The thesis is that the "sacred cow" of Hinduism is an invented tradition. According to The Myth of the Holy Cow, eating beef in India had through the ages been eaten in certain times and places but discouraged or forbidden in others, but it was generally widely practiced by Hindus. Even when people abstained from beef, cows were not considered holy, and no major Hindu deity was identified with them. This changed in the last decades of the nineteenth century, as Hindu activists endeavored to standardize Hinduism into a homogeneous religion, which could easily be opposed to Islam. I am unable to evaluate these claims, but they do seem plausible. The feelings of disorientation in confrontation with the industrializing world led to the invention of numerous traditions in Britain and the United States as well.

Academic, scholarly piece of writing busting the myth of the 'holy' cow!

I don't know whether this was particular to my copy, but the print was not good. In addition to that, this book is not too readable as well. However it is pretty informative and contains solid resources for interested folks to pursue further.

The clincher for me was Ambedkar's essay at the end. However I must find a full version of the essay.

To sum up: You should give this book a try. It contains historical evidence which cogently proves that Hindus and Brahmins indeed consumed beef and cow was not a sacrosanct animal at all.

P.S. I love my beef steaks.

insightful and backed by reasons.

on a topic as sensitive as this,every statement is backed by logic.

an academic effort, though against the cult, one may agree to it or not, its a must read!