While I was trying to find out more about the cow shit festival
I found this article, and I'm at a loss for words. This is translated by ChatGPT but I've compared it to Google translate and editorialised it a little bit, but it does genuinely seem to be an accurate translation.
A hit job against the dung-smeared one himself!
One day, my grandmother was washing the baby's cradle (the kulavi) in the gvaata. (Gvaata refers to the pit dug at the slope behind the cowshed, where the cows are tied; it collects the urine that drains down there) I scolded her, saying, ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Grandma! You’re washing the baby’s cradle in the gvaata! Have you lost all your sense or what? My grandmother snapped at me, saying, ‘What do you know, child? Be quiet and go away!’ The cradle cloths that the babies’ heads rested on would get greasy with the coconut oil applied to their scalps, forming a sticky layer. Germs could collect in that layer and cause sores on the babies’ heads. So she was doing it to prevent that.
Cow urine, you see, is believed to have warming and antiseptic properties. Coconut oil is considered cooling. To balance this effect, they would wash and dry the baby’s cradle cloths in gvaata (the cow-urine pit) before using them again. The sludge that collected in the pit would then be scooped out and added to the manure heap, producing a compost as rich as fertiliser. Even today, cow urine is used in villages as a remedy for coughs, colds, fevers, and skin diseases. During the
upanayana [basically like a Hindu bar mitzvah], the vatu—the initiate— is given panchagavya to drink, a sacred mixture of cow dung (segani), cow urine, milk, curd, and ghee.
The naked ascetics known as Naga sadhus observe the festival of Holi by smearing their bodies with cow dung and the slurry from the cowshed. In some villages of Gadag district in northern Karnataka, there is a custom on the fifth day of the festival to throw cow dung at one another. Near Chamarajanagar, in the village of Gumatapura, people celebrate the Cow Festival during Diwali by coating themselves all over with cow dung. Imagine, then, how sacred and significant these substances—cow dung and cowshed slurry—must be! Lord Shiva himself is said to have burned the dung of his bull, Nandi, and rubbed its ash over his body. That ash, believed to protect against cold, heat, and illness, is why the Naga sadhus are always covered in it. Yet even these things, once regarded as life-giving for the soil, have now come under attack.
In Jamshedpur, it seems there are about 350 cowsheds. The city has been complaining that the dung and slurry from these sheds are making the town dirty! So, the municipal committee there has apparently decided to declare it a ‘cow-dung-free city’ (as reported in
Prajavani, 3 February 201

. But when cow dung and slurry are poured into cement pits, onto tar roads, or down the drains, it disrupts the natural process of creating humus — the living matter that enriches the soil. When pigs and stray dogs play about in it, flies and worms breed, and the stench grows worse. Cattle-rearing itself has declined, while machine-driven farming has increased. The cowsheds have been turned into poultry farms. Fields without manure are turning barren. At such a time, cow dung is worth its weight in gold. Even if you go searching with cash in hand, you won’t easily find natural fertiliser. If whatever dung is still available were properly collected and used for farming, prosperity would return.
You know the saying — ‘What does a donkey know of the scent of perfume?’ In the same way, only a farmer who tills the soil knows the true value — the fragrance — of cow dung. Ask any farmer’s wife, and she’ll tell you herself:
“The hand that churned butter carries the scent of musk;
Basavanna
[founder of the Lingayats], your hand that anointed with cow dung is holy;
The hand of Esala Yalakka
[fertility and farming goddess] holds sanctity too —
Thus she spoke of the purity of cow dung.
And hear what the cow says to those who wrinkle their noses at its dung:
‘When left untouched, I am mere dung.
When you shape me, I become a brick.
When you burn me, I turn to sacred ash for your forehead.
When you spread me, I become the richest manure.
Tell me, O human — which of these am I to you?’
The value of cow dung is not limited to farming alone — it extends to science as well. You may be surprised to learn that during nuclear radiation leaks, cow dung has the capacity to absorb dangerous alpha, beta, and gamma rays. It is even used in atomic research centres for protective purposes. And would you believe — the British are said to have used cow dung to weaken the native princely states of India! When the British found they could not defeat the warrior queen
Kittur Chennamma in open battle, they resorted to deceit. Through traitors within Kittur, they had cow dung smeared inside the fort’s gunpowder magazine — rendering the gunpowder inert, so it would not explode. By such trickery and treachery, they captured Queen Chennamma. In those days, it was the British who placed a
supari—a bounty, a contract—to destroy our strength by turning our own cow dung against us.
[This did apparently happen, but it was not a British idea - two of her chieftans chose to betray her in this way]
And now, our own people are doing the same — giving out
supari to wipe cow dung from the face of the earth. Agricultural scientists warn that the day cow dung, honey, and frogs disappear from this planet, we must understand that agriculture itself has come to an end. In just one gram of dung from an indigenous cow, there are between 30 and 50 billion microorganisms, all vital to maintaining the fertility of the soil. The pure urine of the cow contains minerals and antibacterial properties; it is said that drinking it or bathing in it increases immunity. Last year, the Railway Department purchased 3,500 truckloads of cow dung for cleaning its bio-toilets. Cow dung is now also being used to produce biogas for cooking.
When we were children, on our way to school we would often come across the village’s free-roaming cattle. They would be returning from grazing in the scrublands, their hides glistening in the sun. We would leap nimbly over the fresh cow pats they left scattered across the road. But today, if you go to the village, there are no cattle at all. The roads are choked with vehicles instead — smoke, dust, and noise everywhere. It used to be common to see the walls of village homes neatly plastered with round cow-dung cakes, like flatbreads stuck up to dry. Every backyard had its kulbanas — little heaps of dung stored for fuel. The very word kulllu (dung cake) brings to mind the festival of Holi. About a week before the full-moon of Holi, we children would begin our divine little mission — stealing dung cakes from neighbours’ backyards for the Kamadahana fire. If we were caught, the elders would give us a good beating! Yet even that mischief had something sacred about it. Now, one can’t even find enough cow dung to make the effigy of Gullavva
[local prosperity Goddess] for the village fair. For festivals, initiation rites, sacred fires, and household rituals, people are ordering dried dung cakes online — from Amazon, no less! The cows and the courtyards have vanished from our homes, and with them, a whole way of life.
There is no longer any question of smearing the ground with cow dung. Everything now is cement, tar, and tiles. But for farmers, cow dung was once their goddess Lakshmi herself — the source of prosperity. There was a time when people kept entire herds of cattle simply to collect this dung. For farming and for good harvests, cow-dung manure is indispensable. To protect the crops from pests, the slurry from the cowshed must be used. Cattle — once inseparable from a farmer’s life — were known as Kamadhenu, the wish-fulfilling cow. From this divine creature came the dung that plastered the walls and floors of homes, and the urine that was used to purify them. Cow dung, they said, strengthens the body’s defences; cow urine kills germs. Because of this, mosquitoes and flies would never trouble the household — or so the elders believed. Once, I asked the science writer Nagesh Hegde, ‘What can be done to improve children’s immunity these days?’ He replied, ‘Let children play in the soil and the cow dung.’ But what would the silly folk who cover their noses at the very mention of dung know of such things? Only the goddess Yellamma herself would understand its true sanctity.”