171 
[No. 2, 
Rajendralala Mitra — Beef in Ancient India. 
B. — Sanskritic. 
Nom. 
word 
Gen. 
^\1 ; 
father 
ff 
f<nrr ; 
lord 
w %r ; 
witness 
#7 ; 
woman 
^1 m ; &c. 
Beef in Ancient India. — By Bdbu Rajeotbalaea Mitea. 
The title of this paper will, doubtless, prove highly offensive to most 
of my countrymen ; but the interest attached to the enquiry in connexion 
with the early social history of the Aryan race on this side of the Himalaya, 
will, I trust, plead my excuse. The idea of beef — the flesh of the earthly re- 
presentative of the divine Bhagavati — as an article of food is so shocking to 
the Hindu, that thousands over thousands of the more orthodox among 
them never repeat the counterpart of the word in their vernaculars, and many 
and dire have been the sanguinary conflicts which the shedding of the blood 
of cows has caused in this country. And yet it would seem that there was 
a time when not only no compunctious visitings of conscience had a place in 
the mind of the people in slaughtering cattle — when not only the meat of 
that animal was actually esteemed a valuable aliment,— when not only was it 
a mark of generous hospitality, as among the ancient Jews, to slaughter the 
“ fatted calf” in honor of respected guests, but when a supply of beef was deem- 
ed an absolute necessity by pious Hindus in their journey from this to another 
world, and a cow was invariably killed to be burnt with the dead.* To Eng- 
lishmen, who are familiar with the present temper of the people on the sub- 
ject, and to a great many of the natives themselves, this remark may appear 
quite startling ; but the authorities on which it is founded are so authentic 
and incontrovertible that they cannot, for a moment, be gainsaid. 
To the more learned among my countrymen the fact is not unknown 
that the Vedas, at one time, enjoined a ceremony called gomedha, or the sacri- 
fice of cattle ; but they imagine it was typical, and did not involve the actual 
slaughter of the animal, and accordingly envelope it in mystery, so as to 
render it completely unintelligible to the uninitiated, or intelligible in a 
manner that takes them entirely away from the truth. When the subject 
attracted the attention of the late Professor Wilson, the attempt at mystifi- 
* Vide my paper on the ‘ funeral Ceremonies of the Ancient Hindus.’ Journal, 
Vol. XXXIX, p. 241. 
