valmikiramayan.net Prose Commentary

Desiraju Hanumanta Rao's prose rendering with embedded explanatory notes

The source appends a substantial endnote titled 'Sacredness of the Cow.' It cites the Taittiriya Shruti: 'yajnaiH avaapyate somaH sa ca goShu pratiShTitaH' -- soma is obtained through sacrifice, and sacrifice itself is rooted in cows. It then quotes an extended Mahabharata passage (Anushasanika Parva, Bhishma to Yudhishthira) holding that offerings to gods and ancestors, satisfaction of the old and young, and the sacred exclamations svaha and vashat are all perpetually rooted in cows; that sacrifice's fruit and sacrifice itself both rest on cows; that one should never recoil from a cow's urine or dung nor eat her flesh, so as to obtain her full benefit; and that there is no greater gift nor more meritorious a deed than this, since through hide, hair, horns, tail-hair, milk, and fat combined, a cow sustains sacrifice itself. A dk citation adds that this passage implicitly warns against three things: trading in cows for a livelihood, excessive greed regarding them, and disregarding their supreme sanctity as the basis of all Vedic learning and ritual life. The source notes Vashishtha only hints at this 'go mahaatmyam' (glory of the cow) and its unmarketability, trusting that the scripture-versed Vishvamitra will grasp the point himself, rather than spelling it out further.