Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/312

 290 The Veneration of the Cow in India.

the Badagas, Koravas, and Kotas,^*^ is the danger of dealing with such a " sacred " substance and the removal of taboo.^^ Dr. Rivers supposes that in former times the milk of the sacred cattle, which can now be used under careful restric- tions, by the herdsmen and some members of the tribe, was reserved for the calves, a rule which iji certain cases still holds its ground/''^ At present the milking- place and the dairy- are carefully screened from public view ; no woman is per- mitted to enter them ; no widower or widow is allowed to drink the milk during the period of mourning ; the dairy is regarded as a temple, and the dairyman is protected by rigid taboos.^^ The wilder section of the Veddas apparently never kept cattle, and their shamans do not object to drink milk. In some places it is believed that the presence of cows in the house neutralises the polluting influence of women on the sacred objects of the tribe.^"

The magical properties attributed to milk in south India are shown by its use for the removal of taboo. The Tottiyans pour milk over the married pair, and the Ti5^ans remove the death pollution by letting some drip on the heads of the mourners.''^ The same feeling attaches to other products of the cow. The value of her urine as a means of removing taboo was well established among the Iranians.^"-^ In India the use of the same substance can be traced back to the Atharva-veda, and is probably much older, while from the period of the law-books down to the

^^Thurston, op. cit., vol. i., pp. 75, S8 ; vol. iii., pp. 491 et seq.; vol. iv., pp. 10 et seq.

"W. H. R. Rivers, The Todas, p. 231 ; T. G. Fiazer, The Golden Bough (3rd ed.), Part v., vol. ii., p. 314.

^^ Rivers, op. cit., pp. 231 et seq., 241, 245. '-'^ Ibid., pp. 430, 241.

«0C. G. and B. Z. Seligmann, The Veddas, pp. 48, 17S et seq.

''I Thurston, op. cit., vol. vii., pp. 192, 87.

Parsis (2nd ed.), pp. 242, 331, 385 ; Zend Avesta, Sacred Books of the East, vol. iv,, pp. 64, 98, 216.
 * ^M. Haug, Essays on the Sacred Lan^tiage, Writings, and Religion of the

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