192 Rajendralala Mitra — Beef in Ancient India. [No. 2, 
A cow was next brought forward and offered to the guest ; whereupon 
he said, “ My sin is destroyed, destroyed is my sin,” and then ordered the 
immolation of the animal with the words Om kuru, “ accomplish, Amen.”* 
The host thereupon immolated the cow in the name of some appropriate 
divinity. If it were desired that the cow should be sanctified and let 
loose, then the guest repeated the mantra : “ This cow is the mother of the 
Rudras, and the daughter of the Yasus, the sister of the Adityas, and the 
pivot of our happiness ; therefore I solemnly say unto all wise men, kill 
not this harmless sacred cow. Let her drink water and eat grass ;”f and then 
ordered it to be let loose, and the same was accordingly done. Lest this 
should lead to the idea that the feast at this ceremony may be celebrated 
without flesh meat, A's'valayana emphatically ordains that no Madhuparka 
should be celebrated without flesh meat, J and his commentator Garganaray- 
ana provides for this by saying that “ when the animal is sacrificed, its meat 
supplies the requirement of the feast ; should it be let loose, flesh meat 
should be provided by other means, but on no account should the feast 
be without that article.” § 
In this he has followed the ordinance of Manu, who declares that the 
man who, having in due form performed a (Madhuparka or other) ceremony, 
fails to eat flesh meat, will be doomed to be bom an animal for twenty-one 
generations ;|| and that Brahma having created animals for sacrifices, their 
immolation at a Vedic ceremonial cannot be injurious, and that animals, 
beasts, trees, tortoises, and birds, destroyed in the performance of sacred rites, 
rise after death in the scale of creation.^ 
Convenient as the ceremony of Madhuparka was for the celebration of 
a feast, it was not calculated to afford a ready and cheap supply of meat to 
persons given to its use, and accordingly Manu ordained (ante, p. 176,) that 
* ^irsn^r^itirq art il ^ ll 
'Ttit % vrar vm « Mfr TfH sTfasu -$r$=»s<Tf<T ii ii 
tit sjftraT srqrfr. i vfk; ^ 
TT«TT I fPT STflrfir II ^ 8 II 
t «reTSifk;7!TTvrTWcr*sj srim: i vpn krk 
at nrflvrwirTnrfa I i n 
This mantra occurs in the ceremony of letting loose the cow which used to he 
led before a corpse to the burning ground at a funeral. Vide ante vol. XXXIX p. 247. 
t ^Twm wqti wtfrf v*f?r ii 
§ TrywTwrervpmH Vf i 3 »tt: I Tirnfv iimfrnf^sr sf%*- 
fkfajj M^frT I WT5JVT, 
^33J5T»r'iv? I AsValayana I, 24-26. 
|| Manu V. 35. 
IT Ibid V. 394. 
