Cow Protectionism in Modern Sri Lanka
Cow Protectionism in Modern Sri Lanka
The image of the holy cow is a powerful symbol of Indian religiosity. Indeed, many consider cow veneration and cow protectionism to be a necessary feature of Hinduism. Yet the reality of cow protectionism in India is far more complicated than this simplistic assumption. Cow protectionism in India is, in fact, a relatively recent phenomenon and the ancient Vedic and Brahmanical literature clearly endorse widespread cattle slaughter. Furthermore, the notion that modern India is a bastion of general animal protection can be challenged both in regards to the motives behind vegetarianism in India (which will not be covered here) and by way of the fact that animals – including buffalo – are ritually slaughtered at Saivite temples throughout India and in other Hindu nations such as Nepal.
Sri Lanka also maintains a cow protection movement, but for the most part, and unlike its Indian-Hindu counterpart, it appears that there is a more serious minded attitude concerning non-violence towards animals on the island. Buddhist doctrine endorses the concept of ahiṃsā – or non-violence – towards all living beings. The idea is generally taken seriously in Sri Lanka, as has been established by various anthropological studies there, including research I conducted in 2011-2012. In the course of my fieldwork it was discovered that there is a thriving cow protection organization in Colombo and that this movement has been operating for many years. It was soon discovered that cows appear to occupy a privileged position in Sri Lanka, just as they do in India, except that Sri Lanka is culturally distinct from India in a number of different ways, most notably in terms of religion: Sri Lanka is predominately a Buddhist country. In addition, the principle of non-violence encourages universal benevolence towards all animals, not just cows. This apparent privileging of cows therefore demands explanation in light of these facts.
The Issue of Cow Protection in India
The common assumption that cows in India are owed special protection due to their apparent sacredness is an assumption challenged by several contemporary scholars. Ludwig Alsdorf and D.N. Jha, for example, have both demolished the idea that cows were afforded special treatment in the ancient Vedic and Brahmanical texts. To give one an idea of how radical this challenge is it must be observed that Jha’s book ‘The Myth of the Holy Cow’ has been banned in India because it is viewed as blasphemous by certain fringe religious groups. Jha shows that the Vedas and Brahmanas – two important textual sources for modern Hinduism – both encourage the ritual slaughter of animals and, in particular, cows. In fact, the slaughter of cattle is considered the highest form of sacrifice in the Vedas and the Vedic gods seem to be particularly fond of bovine flesh (2002, p.29). Moreover, the slaughter of these animals in sacrifice also entails their consumption (2002, p.32). Animal sacrifice was a way of producing favour with the gods and this favour could only be realized through the consumption and internalization of the blessed flesh.
This magico-transformative process continues on today for example at the Kataragama dewalaya in Kataragama Sri Lanka except, in this case, the offering is vegetarian. There a basket of fruit is offered to the Kataragama shrine (Kataragama is the Sinhalised version of the god Skanda). Once blessed by the kapurāḷa, i.e., religious officiate, the basket is then consumed by the devotee thus transferring Kataragama’s blessings to them. There is a clear connection, then, between sacrifice and consumption, hence the slaughter of animals in the context of India requires the consumption of the flesh too.
In view of the fact that cattle were slaughtered and eaten by the ancient Indians, Jha makes the point that “the cow was neither sacred nor unslayable in the Vedic period” (2002, p.38). Jha observes that although the cow was not sacred, it was considered important from a business and agricultural perspective given that cows were multiply useful and so they became treasured pieces of property (2002, p.39). Jha intimates that these prudential virtues may have been the genesis for future moralizing about the intrinsic value of cows in Indian society.
Alsdorf accepts, along with Jha, that key orthodox Hindu religious texts encourage animal sacrifice. He observes that the Manu-smiṛti, for example, condemns animal slaughter except in the case of animal sacrifice (2010, p.20-21). Nonetheless, he also notes that such interpretations are complicated by the fact that there are other passages that encourage nonviolence to animals. One passage reads, for example, that, “one cannot obtain meat without injuring living beings, but the killing of living beings does not lead to heaven, therefore one must do without meat (2010, p.3). This contradiction in the Manu-smiṛti between the endorsement of outright vegetarianism and the endorsement of animal sacrifice – and therefore meat eating – could potentially herald a turning point in the history of Indian animal protectionism. Alsdorf believes that the pro-animal sacrifice passages are later redactions (2010, p.25). Clearly this supposition is at odds with the continuity for animal sacrifice from the earlier Vedas, but it is not necessary to settle this issue here. What is important is that we begin to see the genesis of animal protectionism in the Manu-smiṛti and, consequently, subsequent cow protectionism.
Given the thorny history of animal protection in these ancient, and near-ancient, texts it is useful now to ponder how cow protectionism, in particular, came to be of importance in the Indian religious consciousness. Writing in 1911 W. Crooke was able to write, “Though respect for the [[[Wikipedia:cow|cow]]] is widely spread among races in the pastoral stage of culture, it seems rarely, if ever, to reach that feeling of passionate devotion towards their sacred animals which is found amongst the Hindus” (1912, p.277). Leaving aside the extreme orientalism of Crooke’s article , these observations seem to conform with contemporary Hindu culture. Due to their status, along with holy men and children, cows are deposited whole into the Ganges at the city of Banaras in Uttar Pradesh (see image 1). This is just one example of the special status that cows are afforded. Crooke attempts to provide some explanation for this extreme cow veneration. Crooke begins – mistakenly according to Jha – by interpreting the Vedas and Brahmanas as being pro-cow and interpreting these texts as excluding the sacrifice of cattle (1912, p.280). The cause of this attitude, Crooke thinks, comes from religious superstition and that this leads to the animal’s flesh being unpalatable (ibid). Another option that Crooke entertains is psycho-analytical: there is a commonality between the cow and the mother since both provide sustenance (1912, p.282). I will return to this idea later on.
A more likely explanation, Crooke says, is, however, the possibility that cows were ultimately considered sacred not merely out of superstition, but rather for agricultural reasons (ibid). On this matter Jha and Crooke can at least agree. Jha notes that although cattle were routinely slaughtered in ancient India, this was partly because they were so useful economically: “Cattle hide,” he says, “was used in a variety of ways. The bowstring was made of a thong of cowhide – a practice that may have continued in later times. The different parts of the chariot were tied together with leather straps, also needed for binding the arrow to the shaft. The goad for driving the animals was made of cow hide or tail” (2002, p.37-38). Examples multiply in this way. Jha suggests that this importance led to cattle gaining special legal privileges such that their unwanted killing was considered a significant crime (2002, p.38-39).
Whatever the ancient historical origins of this cow protectionism are, it is clear that the movement towards cow protection in India became particularly heated in the early formation of the Indian state. According to Freitag, for example, the symbol of the cow was a useful force in mobilizing and uniting Indians together for particular political causes (1980). The cow protection riots that erupted in 1893 throughout Northern India were motivated, ostensibly, by anti-Muslim sentiment (ibid). Similarly, Mohandas Gandhi and other Indian nationalists used the idea of cow welfare in Indian culture in a more peaceful way and regarded the protection of the cow as a feature of Hindu religiosity. Indirectly, this helped solidify their political aspirations through the construction of a new Hindu identity - which until that time did not really exist - and this furthered Gandhi’s objective of overthrowing the British (see image 2). The cow protection discourse therefore fed into the formation of Hindu identity and this was expressed either through violent protests such as the 1893 riots and through peaceful projects such as Gandhi’s interest in humane dairy farms.
Cow protectionism is therefore associated with issues of Hindu religious identity and the formation of this identity probably finds its modern origins ultimately in politics rather than religion. The veneration of cows is therefore first of all a nationalist issue and this in fact is attested to even today when one considers that Jha’s book, critical of any assumptions about the religious origins of cow protection, found such a political backlash even as recent as 2002. Cow protection in India is therefore an interesting phenomenon insofar that it is distinctly Indian and deals with modern Indian concerns more coloured by politics than religion. It therefore remains puzzling how such a movement can also apply to a culturally and politically independent country such as Sri Lanka.
Before we move on to the case of Sri Lanka, it is important to observe that, even in modern India, and in other Hindu nations such as Nepal, ritual animal slaughter is still carried out. In spite of their religious significance such sacrifice can still include cattle. The Kalighat temple in Calcutta, for example, maintains two chambers for animal sacrifice – one for goats and sheep, the other for larger animals in particular buffalo. The animals are sacrificed with a single stroke from a scimitar. Another example is the Dashain festival in Nepal (see image 3). During the festival hundreds of goats and buffalo are sacrificed. Their entrails are hung from temple entrances and left for many months after the festival has finished.
It is useful to provide examples like this for two reasons: First, because it establishes that animal sacrifice is still common in India and Hindu nations today and that this sacrifice involves cattle and bovines. Second, because it sets up a contrast with the case of Sri Lanka where animal sacrifice is only ever carried out in a symbolic way and where there is a much stronger tradition of non-violence towards animals.
Non-Violence to Animals in Sri Lanka
The colonization of Sri Lanka by Buddhist missionaries around the turn of the first millennium led to the spread of a new ethos concerning animal welfare. Consequently, Sinhala Buddhist myth and history is heavily invested in animal welfare. It is not possible to examine every detail of this but here are a few examples: according to Sinhala Buddhist myth, the end of Buddhism is associated – and perhaps even caused by – a great, apocalyptic even, slaughter of animals; the renewal of Buddhism, on the other hand, is the result of spontaneous feelings of compassion towards those same creatures (Gombrich, 1991, p.336). The Mahāvaṃsa – a mythologized chronicle of the history of Sri Lanka – discusses the introduction of Buddhism onto the island. In the chronicle the Buddhist missionary Mahinda, before he even begins proselytizing the virtues of Buddhism, interrupts King Devānaṃpiyatissa’s royal hunting expedition (MV, p.167). This interruption of the royal hunt calls to mind Buddhist Jātaka stories in which hunting, as an activity, is considered in extremely poor light.
This mythic image of Buddhism interrupting animal slaughter gains a certain degree of historical traction in light of certain known facts about Sinhala Buddhist history. Gombrich reports, for example, that a number of Sinhala Buddhist kings banned animal slaughter altogether and roughly enforced vegetarianism in their kingdom. Robert Young notes that, during the 18th century, the anti-Catholic monk Välivita Saranaṃkara pressured the Kandyan King Vijaya Rājasiṃha to “enforce the Buddhist prohibition against the consumption of wine and meat” (1995, p.52). We can see then that this need to outlaw meat came very much from a religious motivation. Robert Knox observes in his 17th century account of the Kandyan Kingdom that Sinhala Buddhists, although they ate every type of animal (including monkeys), viewed vegetarianism in a good light and considered it a pious Buddhist activity (1958, p.135). Of particular interest for us is his observation that the slaughter of cows was totally forbidden and in fact accusing someone of being a beef eater was used in a pejorative sense because it implied that the individual was a bloodthirsty colonist (1958, p.xvii; p.xxxvii). During the British rule, monks of that era also regarded vegetarianism as a moral activity. In particular, the extremely influential Sinhala monk Anagārika Dhammapala11 argues in his ‘Daily Code for the Laity’ (Gihi Vinaya) that devout Buddhists should be vegetarians (Prothero, 1995, p.297). In fact, Dhammapala reports in his biography that he hated his Christian schoolmasters because they ate meat and shot birds for game (Gombrich, 2006, p.186).
It is interesting to see, from the above, that vegetarianism and animal welfarism in Sri Lanka has traditionally been associated with Sinhala nationalism. To begin with, the mythic story of Mahinda spreading Buddhism through the island of Lanka is heavily concerned with identity building – it was at that point, for many Buddhists, that what is known as ‘Sinhala Buddhism’ was created and The Mahāvaṃsa can be, and often is, considered a nationalist text that is designed to help construct the Sinhala identity. The Mahāvaṃsa, after all, is (in)famous for dividing Tamil ‘invaders’ from the ‘native’ Sinhala who legitimately control the island. It is possible that this kindness towards animals is therefore a feature of a nationalist discourse – the Sinhala Buddhists are kind and gentle while others are not. We can see this idea more explicitly realized in the account of Välivita Saranaṃkara who pressures the Kandyan king to institute mandatory abstention from meat and alcohol. The purpose is not just to force people to be good Buddhists, it is also to create a division between Catholicism and Buddhism – Catholicism is violent and greedy, Buddhism is peaceful and wants for nothing but virtue. Similarly, Anagārika Dhammapala’s insistence that devout Buddhists be practicing vegetarians is very much concerned with his project of reconstructing Buddhism in the face of Christian colonization. In short, animal welfarism as a political movement in Sri Lanka may have been a political instrument to strike at colonists and other undesirables rather than a tool for improving the lot of animals.
canon balls fly many gawwa and shatter fortresses of granite” (in Young, 1995, p.54). 11 So influential that ordinary Sinhala Buddhists still hang pictures of him in their houses – even though he died in 1933.
Sri Lankan animal welfarism may have less noble origins than we might expect, but whatever the nature of its origins it is now evident that this has been internalized into the psyche of many Sinhala Buddhists. Numerous contemporary ethnographers have observed (albeit off hand) that many Sinhala Buddhists view vegetarianism in a favourable light even if they regard it as reserved for the especially pious. This conclusion is something that my own ethnographic research similarly supports (or, rather, it is a view that is widespread amongst the laity – not necessarily so much amongst the monastic community).
In general, animal welfarism seems to be taken quite seriously in Sri Lanka, so even though the origins of animal welfarism could be just as cynical as the case of India, the result seems much better for animals. In contrast to the Indian case, for example, animal sacrifices that are conducted in Sri Lanka do not actually involve animals but rather animals are merely symbolically killed. For example, although Sri Lankan exorcism rituals require that a cock be sacrificed the action is heavily sanitized in order to conform with prevailing cultural norms concerning animal welfare (Gombrich, 1988, p.140). So at the Seenigama Devale on the South-West coast – which is a Kali temple – rather than animals being slaughtered limes and chillies are instead crushed in a pestle.
This concern for animal welfare in fact caused the total abolition of Hindu ritual slaughter in 1980 (ibid). Again, it is plausible to regard this as a being motivated by cynical anti-Tamil sentiments and that the action was intended to continue constructing the fantasy that Sinhala Buddhists are intrinsically peaceful and loving of all creatures while the Tamil-Hindus are violent and brutal (this of course fed into prevailing views in the 90s and 2000s that constructed the Tamils as, ideologically, terrorists).
Cow Protectionism in Modern Sri Lanka
I have suggested in the above that animal welfare in Sri Lanka has certain cynical political roots but that animal welfare (and, indirectly, vegetarianism) has nonetheless been internalized as a Buddhist virtue. What we are interested in here, however, is the special application of this animal welfare to the case of cows. In discussing this issue I will be turning more specifically to recent ethnographic research I conducted in Sri Lanka, particularly in the districts of Colombo and Kegalle.
It is instructive to observe the privileged position that bovines have in the imagination of Sinhala Buddhists. For example, cows are often the first creatures mentioned in Sinhala vegetarian tracts. One text by Shriyā Rathnakāra titled “Give us space to live” (Apata jīvath venna iḍa denna) asks (see image 4), “Isn’t it the case that you [the reader] cut pieces of meat from animal bodies [so that your] mother, father, brother and sister may exist with happiness?” By way of example, he writes, “Cows have gone to a noisy place [i.e., an abattoir]. Goats, pigs, and chickens are no different. Because of you they [the cows] receive a price, lorries take them to cattlesheds, [and] they are imprisoned without food in cages […].” Rathnakāra also discusses the evils of killing and eating cows because it can lead to madness. He describes how, “In the brains of animals – in their ‘brain bags’ [in English] – a certain type of insect occurs. This type of poisonous insect has been propagated for an annual period of ten years. They [the animals] develop mental illnesses. These particular insects make them crazy. It has been discovered by doctors that these insects get lodged in the animal’s flesh and is [then] consumed by human beings [also] making them crazy.” It seems apparent that Rathnakāra is here talking about mad cows disease which, as it turns out, at least in its human variation, does indeed cause insanity in humans, though Rathnakāra gets some of his facts wrong (it is not caused by insects, but rather by misshapen proteins).
The Rathnakāra text is an example of how modern Sinhala vegetarian authors see cows in light of their animal welfare interests. In the Rathnakāra text the cow is of special interest because it is ranked first amongst other animals. The importance of the cow is also evident when one considers the fact that there is an animal protection organization based in Colombo that focuses in particular on cows.
The organisation is called Sangviḍānaye Panivuḍayaki or ‘The Organisation for the Accumulation of Life.’ This organization, or at least its antecedents, seems to be reasonably well known amongst knowledgeable Sinhala Buddhists. A key informant in our study of lay attitudes to vegetarianism had this to say, “It was at one time advised that eating cows was bad and therefore a lot of Buddhists stopped eating cows. But is it only a cow that has life? Sometimes if you kill one cow a hundred people could eat, but if you kill a chicken only two or three people can eat it. So you have to kill a lot of chickens to get the same amount of meat as killing a cow. So if you look at small animals like that, every animal likes its life.” The campaign to which the informant is referring seems to originate from a period in the 80s. So campaigns such as this indicate that cow protection organizations have been around for some time in Sri Lanka.
The Organisation for the Accumulation of Life advertises its views using billboards that are scattered around Colombo – during the 2012 field research we discovered a large and prominent billboard erected at Dehiwala junction (see image 5) and another one in Wellewatta facing Galle Road (the main road in Colombo). The text reads:
Don’t eat the milk mother’s flesh.
Let’s commemorate the 2600 Sri Sambuddha Anniversary (The Birth of the Buddha).
Let’s avoid beef [in] food.
Organisation for the Accumulation of Life.
Number 1 Dharmārāja Road, Wellewatta, Telephone […].
[Picture inset text reads: Let’s protect cow prosperity. Like our mothers.].
The Wellawatta sign is similar. It relies principally upon an appeal to the suffering of cows. It depicts a monk crouching over a calf protecting it (see image 6). The text reads:
You were given the beautiful dharma. How can we as humans, having looked at this innocent face, see how tasty this meat is? Let’s avoid beef [in] food.
The text from the first billboard appeals to a common analogical trope in Indo-Sri Lankan discourse, i.e., the argument that the cow is just like one’s mother. Gandhi, for example, uses this argument in his own writings on cow protectionism, except for Gandhi, mother cow is “in many ways better” than one’s own mother: “Our mother gives us milk for a couple of years and then expects us to serve her when we grow up. Mother cow expects from us nothing but grass and grain. Our mother often falls ill and expects service from us. Mother cow rarely falls ill. Our mother when she dies means expenses of burial or cremation. Mother cow is as useful dead as when alive” (in Jha, 2002, p.17).
Although the Sri Lankan cow protection movement does not go this far statements like “Don’t eat the milk mother’s flesh” appeals to an analogy between one’s own mother and the cow. “Milk mother” or “kiri amma” refers to the paternal grandmother, ‘amma’ simply means mother, and so there is a double play here: the cow is owed respect in the same way that female nurturers are owed respect. The idea of the cow as being an analogue for one’s milk mother is expressed in other areas of Sinhala culture. Of particular note is the popular baila musician Nihal Nelson whose song “Kiri Amma” directly concerns the plight of cows and the need for ordinary Sri Lankans to feel compassion towards them. Nelson’s lyrics directly employ the trope mentioned above:
Don’t eat meat from a mother of milk (kiri amma)
Even the innocent farmer has life
Just think about it: he only ate clean grass
But you were given the honour of being a human and you eat rotten flesh.
It is apparent, then, that the animal welfare movement in Sri Lanka is deeply invested in cow welfare. It is possible that this stems from the religious texts themselves. The Pāḷi Sutta Nipata, for example, employs precisely the argument detailed above. In the context of railing against Vedic cattle sacrifice, we find the Buddha saying, “Like a mother, father, brother, or other relative too, cows are our best friend, in which medicines are produced.” The text speaks unfavourably of a king who slaughters cows even though they are “meek” and “had not harmed anyone.” These cows are described as “innocent” and that, those who sacrifice them, “fall from justice” (SN, 308309, p.36).
Given this, and given the statements made in The Organisation for the Accumulation of Life billboards, one might be inclined to conclude that the animal welfare movement in Sri Lanka is exclusively a cow protection movement. But this is in fact not the case. We interviewed the head of The Organisation of the Accumulation of Life in his Colombo office. It soon became apparent that the movement is interested in the universal protection of all animals. He stated, “Eating the meat of another animal is not good. We love our own lives. […]. If we don’t like dying and we don’t like suffering, if we don’t like being beaten, if we don’t like facing pain – the way we love our bodies is the same as every animal, [only] they’re not able to say it. Whether it be fish, a wild animal, or even a worm in our stomachs – they really love their lives. We don’t have the right (ayithiya) to take away that life. The Buddha dharma states that wisdom.”
It is evident here that this monk does not conceive his organization as being exclusively concerned with cow welfare. In fact, we surmised from the conversation that he was aware of previous efforts (the efforts to which the above lay informant alluded) to campaign on behalf of cow welfare. This campaign, however, was separate from his own organization and the campaign has now ceased though he regarded it as being only marginally successful: “Those monks [that did the work], the people that did the work, when they are gone the work ceases. The government policies (desa pālana darsana) of Mr. Premadasa [a former prime minster] are different to the government policies of Mr. Mahinda [the current prime minister] and from time to time the monks that were around during that time, the leaders that were around during that time, the occupation of harming animals and cows was still there. It wasn’t just around back then, it’s around now. It might have slowed down, but it didn’t stop.”
For the head monk of The Organisation for the Accumulation of Life the above campaign was a separate concern from his own group. Why then does the monk utilize cow imagery so prominently in his billboards? And furthermore, why is the cow the first creature mentioned as an object of sympathy in animal welfare literature? Finally, why has cow welfare reached such significance that the trope now appears in even popular baila songs such as the one mentioned by Nihal Nelson? I will explore a number of tentative explanations.
The first explanation is that this is principally the result of mainland Indian influence. It is a well-known fact that cultural developments in India tend to, in time, bleed through into Sri Lanka. It is possible that the Indian cow protectionism discourse explored earlier was so potent that it infiltrated into Sri Lanka breaking through such powerful roadblocks as differing culture and religion.
Another explanation is that cow protectionism is a convenient political tool in consolidating Buddhist identity in the face of Hindu and Muslim identities. I have made a case for this above and it seems to me evident that there is a strong argument that beef eaters and cow killers are “other” and are viewed as not occupying a place in Sinhala society. This could be construed as an issue of racial politics rather than a strict animal welfare issue. There is also the possibility that this focus comes from economic concerns that are intimately connected to ethnic differences. This is a theory maintained by Jha who states that beef consumption occupies a “low hierarchy” because of “entrepreneurial antagonisms” between Muslim butcheries and Buddhist fisherman (2002, p.71). Muslims principally engage in the business of cattle slaughter while, according to Jha, Sinhala Buddhists are fisherman. Vilifying the beef trade is therefore a good business decision from the perspective of the competition. There are two problems with this argument though: (i) most fishermen are Christian, not Buddhist (as Jha claims), and (ii) hardly anyone in Sri Lanka eats beef anyway, so Jha’s argument around economic competition does not hold much water. But it does work if it is construed entirely as an issue of ethnic politics.
A final explanation is religious in character. According to a prevailing view within many Theravāda nations killing larger animals is more demeritorious than killing smaller animals (Harvey, 2000, p.165). Hence it is far more morally hazardous to kill a cow than a chicken – or a fish – and this theory of size may be important here. It is much easier to persuade Sinhala Buddhists not to kill cows than any other animal because it is very obvious that killing a cow is more sinful.
In fact, it seems that – unlike in the Hindu case – the explanation for why cows have a privileged position in animal welfare discourses in Sri Lanka is mainly prudential rather than ethical. It is far easier to appeal to feelings of sympathy when one is talking about a cow as opposed to when one is talking about a chicken or fish. This is helped by the fact that hardly anyone eats beef anyway. The fact that people already accept that killing cows is bad gives animal welfare groups a leg up in convincing the public not to kill other animals. In short, it is a rhetorical trick rather than a substantive moral position. The Organisation for the Accumulation of Life is interested in the welfare of all animals, but it uses the image of the cow – and the trope of the milk mother – as a pathway into a wider acceptance of general animal welfarism. This seems to have already been relatively successful because, as earlier argued, people generally accept the virtues of animal welfare and many people view ethical vegetarianism as being a high virtue in the Buddhist schema.
Concluding Remarks
just as in the case of the Indian cow protection movement there is a cynical aspect to discourses surrounding cow welfare in Sri Lanka. That is to say, pro-cow discourses are, at their worst, mired in issues of racial segregation. At their best, however, they are merely a pathway into a more virtuous pananimal benevolence. The Sri Lankan case, however, has adopted the cow welfare discourse for its own ends and purposes and, unlike in the Indian case, this discourse meshes more successfully with its own religious and cultural history.
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