"Hindu" Animal Sacrifice in Nepal!!

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam: Times change.

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
PATNA, INDIA, October 14, 2010: Isn�t it a heartening news that Durga Puja committees have been sensitized against animal sacrifice? Ranjit Bhattacharya, a purohit (priest) of a Barowari Puja Committee said, �Sacrifice is an essential aspect of the Puja, for `bali� is the symbol of power. Bali invokes power. And since we are worshipping Durga, who is the embodiment of shakti (power), it is essential to incorporate bali in puja. But it does not have to be an animal. Now most of the Puja committees prefer to use vegetables or fruits,� added the purohit.

Incidentally, even Bengali pandals here do not offer animal sacrifice to the Goddess. Bali made of white pumpkin, sugarcane and cucumber is offered specially on Mahaashtami day during sandhi pujan. An integral and important part of Durga Puja, sandhi puja is performed at the juncture of the 8th and 9th lunar days. Sandhi puja lasts from the last 24 minutes of Ashtami till the first 24 minutes of Navami.

Aum Namasivaya

[Adhvagat]

I mentioned this "animal sacrifice" because I had never heard of it before. Especially at such a scale and that too by Hindus. I am not preaching that it is "wrong". I was just surprised.

And, I know mlecchas (christians/muslims/jews etc.) do all sorts of unsavory things but I am not going to waste my time combating them in this regard. They are not going to change. When Hindus do it, I thought it was something rare and that is why I posted about it.

I also know certain sects of Hindus still do animal sacrifice so I wanted to discuss what the philosophy behind it was. Why some Hindus are very particular about not eating meat, sacrificing animals and others are not that way.

The opinion of my siksha guru on animal sacrifice is that it shouldn't be done in Kali Yuga since there aren't individuals elevated enough to liberate the souls of the animals.

[naga]

In Bali everyday pigs, dogs, frogs, chickens, infact I have seen buffalos and many more. On Eka dasa rudra one of every species is offered to Rudra. The priest would say the animals are raised in the next life to a higher level. Of course the usual tourist rarely sees it. Many cultures in the past do the same. In Bali vegetarianism is rare, so prasadam would contain meat.

[rcscwc]

I mentioned this "animal sacrifice" because I had never heard of it before. Especially at such a scale and that too by Hindus. I am not preaching that it is "wrong". I was just surprised.

And, I know mlecchas (christians/muslims/jews etc.) do all sorts of unsavory things but I am not going to waste my time combating them in this regard. They are not going to change. When Hindus do it, I thought it was something rare and that is why I posted about it.

I also know certain sects of Hindus still do animal sacrifice so I wanted to discuss what the philosophy behind it was. Why some Hindus are very particular about not eating meat, sacrificing animals and others are not that way.

I am never surprised or agast at bali. But I am dismayed. It is futile. General thrust of Upnashids frowns upon Bali and positively disapproves.

Frankly, I do not believe that scarifices were done at that scale. In fact, bali goes on practically around the years.

But I am reminded of Stalin. One murder is a heinous crime, but a million are are just statistics. A few sacrifces by a few Hindus are shocking, millions by muslims- oh SHRUG.

[Arjuni]

Namast�,

I came across this thread a while back and thought to add a little note of hope: From Nov 6 to 11, the Vedic Society will be performing a Somayagya in Panauti, Nepal.

One reason for choosing the Kathmandu Valley is explained as:

"...this has not been done before in the recorded history of Nepal that a non-violent Somayagya has been performed there. Some 13 years back, a Somayagya was done at Pashupathi (the first in recorded history), but it was done with violence to animals which is not acceptable.

The vision of the Rishis for these Mahayagyas was that they could be used bring more peace and harmony to the place they are performed, and hence the need of the hour is to perform this in Nepal."

Indraneela
===
Oṁ Indrāya Namaḥ.
Oṁ Namaḥ Śivāya.

[sm78]

The opinion of my siksha guru on animal sacrifice is that it shouldn't be done in Kali Yuga since there aren't individuals elevated enough to liberate the souls of the animals.

The idea behind bali-dana is not to send living beings to higher life or birth. If somebody was really capable of that, he should be really going on a killing spree and saving the world in the process. With proper understanding, its purpose is same as any ritual i.e liberation - not of the animal, but the performer. Originally it must have been done to appease dieties or vedic gods in case of vedic yajnas, which is also a valid point.

Buddhist monks do have practices to send dying beings (not killing healthy beings) to various lokas. Hindus don't have such practices or at least they are no longer preserved if there were ever such. Although besides the point, I don't believe this buddhist practice works, since sending animals to various lokas is quite absurd - birth of animals and human do not follow the same process really. Animals, directly return to the seed state for rebirth upon death - there is not intermediate lokas, mental vasanas for them to deal with - unless they are already advanced beings trapped in animal body. This ofcourse teaching I believe in, surely not the buddhists.

PS: Buddist tantra also have this idea of sending beings to better birth or even liberation by killing. This was used to justify even practices like human sacrifices and is termed as compassionate killing or violence. Compassionate violence was a big part in the buddhist occupation of Tibet and is also present everywhere Buddhist engaged in violence. I am not a scholar, so early Hindu tantras which were closer to Buddhist tantras may have this element of compassionate killing dogma in them too. (not to suggest that Hindu tantrism was offspring of Buddhist tantrism which would be very wrong, but they had some sort of common ancestory).

But current Hindu practice of Bali-dana has nothing to do with it and shakta doctrine doesn't give this excuse for killing.

Most hindus believe in Ahimsa and see violence as necessary evil needed for survival and protection (eg warfare) and nothing more. This is far better and honest position than "Compassionate Violence", which is to me is a poor excuse and dangerous justification for evil, not too different from Jehadi logic of suicide bombing who fall on a very similar logic. Buddhism under clout of superior philosophy has often sheltered quite dangerous dogmas and notions, and continue to shelter such notions.

You may refer to David Gray's thesis on Comapassionate Violence in buddhist ethics. It may be through them that this sending animals to better birth etc became popular opinions. As I said, if you are really capable of doing some good to other's by killing them, why not be a mass-murderer than preaching from a monestry? Its a fallacy, and a dangerous one, likely to be evoked only when commiting a crime and not otherwise. Hindus should stay away from such justifications, even if some obscure proof of the notion is discovered in our own books. My opinion ofcourse.

[Guiding Thoughts]

Dear Readers .

Animal sacrifice is such a tragedy.

Hinduism is a religion that preaches love for all our fellow beings. Animal sacrifice is a distortion of the Hinduism concept of self evolution which is " We need to sacrifice the animal instincts that rests within us individually" so as to evolve into better human beings. It does not mean sacrificing an animal LITERALLY.

To God all of his creation is equally loved. For eg. As parents we love all our children equally.We are not going to be pleased if one of our children "sacrifices or Kills" the other to please us as parents. So how can we expect GOD to do the same?

We are a blogspot committed to spreading the scientific basis of Hinduism. We invite readers to visit us at:
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Best regards
Guiding Thoughts Team

[ShivaFan]

Namaste

Hmmm... I haven't read this posting before and noticed it tonight since someone had put in a reply today.

I say "Hmmmm..." because I am having a hard time exactly how to respond to this. Anyone who knows me, they know that I am a great admirer and lover of animals, especially birds, and of course especially the beautiful cows of India. The eyes of these cows, literally, can make your heart melt and you want to "marry" one! Of course, that is a bit of overstating things, but that is how much I love the beautiful cows. And the baby cows, I just want to kiss them and give them all the love.

I love birds, as many who know me are aware. Some of my favorite birds are the Fruit Doves (BEAUTIFUL! - look up their images on the internet!) and so reading about sacrificing doves and pigeons does make me upset. I have many doves who come to my white millet feeders every morning, they have no fear of me at all. Their are mourning doves, Eurasian Collard Doves (actually, unusual for this area), ring necks, I have Quails come also, and Jays. Note far away on a very tall tree are crows and during a certain time of the year very HUGE ravens come to eat the walnuts. They pick up the walnuts, smash them on the ground and eat the insides. Of course, jays, crows and ravens are also meat eaters.

But I still say "Hmmm...." because, I have been to, and go to Kali Ghat Temple near Kolkata. Goats are sacrificed there, the head is chopped off. Now if I give, I give big bags of rice. But I have stood with a goat sacrifice just in front of me, and I have to say it is none of my business telling the priests what to do regarding Mother Kali. I can see it can be upsetting, when I was before such a sacrifice the last time and the head came off and blood, there was an Indian girl who let out a sort of scream which sort of made things odd at the time.

I have to say, I also love goats, especially those ones from Egypt. I would LOVE to have goats of my own on personal property, but that would not be fesiable for me. Because I LOVE goat milk! Nevertheless, as shocking as this sounds to my fellow Shaivites, the goat sacrifice doesn't make me flinch in the least. I also love Mother Kali very much!

My personal devotion to Kali Mother is in Her form as a young girl, which is not a common devotion but She does appear as such to mystics, yogis and others, sometimes in the actual person of a young girl and not just an apiration of vision.

I think, and agree with the pujaris, that goat sacrifice to Kali Mother is ok. I hope there is nothing wrong in saying that.

There was a thread on this forum about the Horse Sacrifice. That is restricted actually to Royal members of the Raj, such as sponsored Horse Sacrifices by Maharajas, Rajas and Princes. Only they can sponsor this. Since there are so few such Royals which have any real royal authority, we do not see the Horse Sacrifice anymore as was in the Ramayana. I have no issue with it, but no one needs to fuss over it since there isn't anymore Royals in authority to sponsor a Horse Sacrifice so there won't be any of late, or extremely rare.

I am not for Buffalo Sacrifice at all.

So I guess, I am of the opinion that some forms, such as goat sacrifice to Kali Mother, or Horse Sacrifice sponsored by Royals, has it's place and I am not one to criticise. I hope no one is angry at me for saying so.

Om Namah Sivaya

[ShivaFan]

Namaste

Actually I gave a little more thought regarding this thread.

What was also interesting is, while driving to work and listening to Fox News over Sirius satellite radio, a commercial came on from an organization called “ADAPTT – Animals Deserve Absolute Protection Today and Tomorrow”. The voice was appealing to listeners about patriotism expanding to protecting animals such as cows and livestock. So I took a visit to the site, finding some young man named Gary Yourofsky (anyone know him by chance?), very healthy looking, I noticed he has his head shaved so I am not sure if he is ex-ISKCON or other but I played a video of his from the organization's site which was called “Watch a LIFE-CHANGING speech” and in the video he makes clear at the onset that what he is about to talk about will not include any of his religious beliefs. He does quote “Thou shalt not kill” but he is addressing what appears to be kids at a public school, not sure. So his presentation isn’t Christian, Hindu or any other, it is simply advocacy for animals and stopping the slaughter of livestock in the United States.

I am not going to post his web link, if you are really interested you can easily search them on the internet by "Animals Deserve Absolute Protection". Again, this is not a Hindu site, not any particular religion actually so I am not sure the policy around posting a web link of such on the HDF.

I did watch most of the video, it is strange how things seem to all happen at a particular time since on the way in I was kind of feeling bad about animals in general and my response on HDF. This video was very convincing actually, it does not present the Hindu viewpoint but it did present a lot of science around the fact that humans are not carnivores. Be forewarned, if you watch the video, about halfway through it he plays a short film to the class about what happens in the slaughter house. Of course, seeing beloved cows being tortured, really is upsetting and you can imagine the class was upset too since almost all young kids love animals and they also love cows.

So this makes me stop and take a better look at how all animals are treated, including goats for example.

Thanks for sharing some thoughts on this! You know, all life needs respect. On my way into work, right in front of me on the freeway, a shoot out started and guns fired. An officer was shot dead, one suspect I believe dead, all traffic stopped, it appeared another suspect was on the run, and then of all crazy things a huge fire then burst up off the side of the freeway as well. It was total mayhem. Love your family, love your fellow Hindus, and love the animals. Because at any moment things can happen, and disrespect for life is a big problem in the modern world. I am home now, work told me to somehow turn around and head back, which actually was quite difficult but I am home now and I think I will give my bird friends some more white millet and peanuts to eat.

Om Namah Sivaya