I found another Ayurvedic reddit post. I'm just going to post the text with translations, but
the archive link is here. For everyone asking "why don't Indians just say that poop festival was one small gross village", it's because they know how widespread ritual use of cow excrement is in India.
Namaste! How do we justify the use of cow dung (dried cow dung cakes) and cow urine to non-Santanis (traditional Hindus)?
We Sanatanis know the importance of cow, and that in the cow all the divinities reside. I have seen the use of cow dung cakes in my house since forever for the ritual of pacifying angry ancestral spirits, for new moon ancestor worship rituals, and many other occasions when we need to see a ritual fire or do a small fire sacrifice ritual. We have also used cow urine for purifying the place where we will install idols or do rituals or make an altar for fire sacrifices etc. We have used the panchagavya (mix of milk, ghee, curds, cow dung and cow urine) forever. But how do we explain it to non-santanis who are far removed from the cultural and spiritual education that we have received?
Replies:
I've seen non-sanatanis use "cow dung" and "cow urine" as racist jibes. I don't see any need to justify its use to such people. In case someone is genuinely interested in Hinduism, it's pretty simple. Just explain how it was used in your home. The important thing is, in older times, the cattle used to graze on wild medicinal herbs on the meadow and hills. That's why cow dung and cow urine was used for purification etc. Modern cows fed on modern feed don't produce the same effect. But rituals can't be changed by lay people and are to be followed. My grandma's home has a jar of ghee that's 105 years old and is used only for medicinal purposes. It was made from the milk of a cow of a particular type which was fed a certain medicinal herb. Modern ghee won't last that long.
Why do you feel the need to? The justification ultimately will come from our scriptures. Non-religious people won't care about them. You may cite Ayurvedic sources for medical uses of cow urine, but that won't be a "justification" for ritualistic use.
i think differently on this. the time someone asks me how do we justify this to xx/yy person i ask them why do u want to? how does that benefit you? what purpose does it serve you? the people deluded by
cosmic illusion and people incapable of understanding god are never going to believe and accept what you say no matter how true and justified it is. it's like explaining democracy to a dictator, he isn't going to understand what you say or anything, the anecdote isn't really that beneficial but i hope u get the gist of it.
- Because when u can't explain something someome, you may lack knowledge on the subject. And in modern times when people practically can learn about any topic. We consistently fall for superstition and pseudo science. Many psuedo guru keep claiming nonsensical facts like peacock birth, why not to eat Onion and garlic. Big famous guru uses bizarre explanation on social media making a mockery of religion. Some practices are metaphorical and some are scientific. It's high time we accept that we don't know much about our own religion and culture. There needs to be standard explanation for things which are scientific. We as a community need to agree in some basic things Everybody keep accusing each other of ignorance. Is not going to work long term. It's high time, we understand the nuance between metaphor. Metaphor, purana, stories are for personal interpretation. Nothing in our books or gods has universal definitions. Stop Shaming others, just because they get different perspectives from the same book. Unless it is intentionally done to demean religion.
- I'll still stick to my opinion, it doesn't make sense trying to explain something to someone that doesn't want to understand it. if u think us, as a community, giving scientific explanations to others who mock us are going to stop mocking us and it's just delusion on our part. they'll continue to mock us and I wouldn't be one to waste my time and energy on trying to explain things to them, however at the same time, I'll educate my kids/family members about all of it so they never feel that why is it so and why not so their faith in the religion stays intact for lack of better words. however, i respect your opinion but i just wouldn't be one to do that because the west has a very stereotypical image of india and Hinduism and no matter what we do, it's not gonna change to the core or anything.
- I mock us. We have an 80 crore population, what percentage of the population do u think know about actual advantages behind behind gaumutra, cow milk and cow dung. What percentage you think knows about, actual benifit and drawbacks of using ayurvedic products.
Why ride this high horse. I had seen a reporter eating cow dung on live tv. Trying to convey how pure it is. What should i do? Embrass him? Aplaud him?
Western countries understand the benefit of grass fed cows milk..in India we have no pastures left for cows to graze. Whom are we trying to portray we care about cows. But most surveys, 40% of milk and milk products sold in India are adulterated. That's why people mock us, not because they don't know the advantage of a cow. They know we ourselves don't follow standard we try to show.That created mockery.
https://www.cseindia.org/adulterated-milk-is-what-indians-are-drinking-3691
Forget explaining outsiders. First convince our people to stop messing with cows and milk. Then will talk about dung and urine
Another bonus one:
Is drinking cow urine a mandatory part of Yagnopavitra (Hindu bar mitzvah) ritual?
I commented on a r/india thread that it's and many subscribers are saying it's not. I had my upanayana ceremony when I was 22 and my parents said it is and you do need to worry pandits (Hindu rabbis) will put one drop in something you eat or drink, you will never come to know when you drank it. Also same thing is mentioned here
Is it part of ritual and mandatory or it varies across India and differ according to regions?
From what I understand, drinking of cow urine is generally part of shuddi (purification) ceremony, which may or may not occur prior to the actual upanayana ceremony. The upanayana ceremony doesn't appear to involve cow urine per se. The cow urine is considered purifying, similiar in nature to water from the Ganga. The notion that it'll be 'slipped' into your food or drink without you knowing, however, is completely foreign to me. Fresh cow urine/dung is an important part of standard fire rituals. My suspicion is that since you had your upanayana as an adult, as opposed to as a child, this obligated the ritual cleansing ceremony. This may or may not be standard for your community, but as you pointed out, this has not been the experience for most people.
- It's a bit non-intuitive to drink urine for purification. Can you expand on the original source of this practice?
- The five fresh emanations of a cow, the panchagavya, are considered so pure that they are capable of purifying deeply impure places/people. In standard practice, it is considered at par with Ganga water, and considered a fair substitute. Cow urine is routinely used for the purification of spaces to be used for fire sacrifices, which is the context in which I am familiar with it. The purity of a cow and its emanations are upheld in several scriptural texts, the one I'm most familiar with is from the Skanda Purana.
- Does it straight away say that the panchagavya can/may/should be used to purify place/people. Or It simply says that it's pure?
- No, the text in the Skanda Purana describes the purity of the cow. The purificatory effects of cow urine are described in the Atharva Veda, Charaka Samhita, Rajni Ghuntu, Vridhabhagabhatt, Amritasagar, Bhavaprakash, Sushruta Samhita, among others. The Garuda Purana specifically calls on cow urine as a means for a sinner to purify himself.
- Speaking of purifying sinners, chanting Krishna's name is the best (also respectively described as "the divine mantra that liberates" in these sinful times). However it is wrong to treat chanting sacred names as a sin-clearing machine.
- The story I've heard goes something like, all the Gods asked God where they need to reside and he told them to reside in the various parts of a cow. Finally, lakshmi, his wife asked him where she should reside in the cow as all the parts are taken. He told her to reside in the excretions of the cow, this was to show to world her surrender, she happily agreed to God's will. This is supposed to be the reason as to why the cow urine and cow shit is considered sacred, lakshmi the wife of God resides in it. This refers to internal cleansing (mind and soul) not external cleansing.
In Hinduism nothing of God's creation is useless or unsacred. In fact there are no bad words in ancient sanskrit. So all animals are sacred, all elements are sacred. Our shit is fertilizer that provide nutrients to plants, we eat the plants etc., Some things are non-conducive, during some times, for some purposes. A dog's chi (life force) is detrimental to meditation and development of bhakti, which is why dogs are normally not kept as pets by certain hindu households. This was also one of the reasons that kings used cheetahs to hunt in India, instead of dogs. This is also the reason that modern readings of the vedas come up with stuff that sound really bad or offensive. That "everything is sacred mind-set" has disappeared. Exactly translating vedic sanskrit to other languages makes the verses sound horrible or wrong. Edit: Spelling and formatting.
[deleted comment chain - in response] Would like to add, I did not follow the proceedings/daily things to do after the Yajnopavita ceremony. So I am not the right person to talk about its benefits. Those things are difficult to follow so majority of people skip it. Yajnopavita was done because in my culture/regions(Kashmiri Pandit) it is mandatory to do it before marriage.
), but Indian equivalents are embraced and doubled-down on. It's clear as the shit on these peoples' foreheads that they have a disgusting cow-shit war every year because of their disgusting cow-shit religion, but the average hind-nationalist can't admit that it's fucking gross. That would be shameful, and India number one superpower saar not shame having country.
