Sacrifice or Killing, in the name of God

Animal sacrifice in Hindu religion

Two pale, apathetic eyes are reflecting fear, have no interest to eat his favorite peepal leaves any more, after seeing the bodies of his types coming out from a gathering of noise and smoke. Then his master starts pulling his belt to make him reach to the water, for the finest bath in his entire life, but he is screaming and resisting with his full power, which is very little, though try to resist while bathing, through the roadway to temple. And while standing in the queue his legs are trembling in fear, his eyes are witnessing the most horror scene in his life. During the puja (worship) dedicated to him, he made some failure attempts to run away. This finally ends with the steel and his last sound resembled with a great noise created by the humans and then everything goes dark.

He had sheer intention to escape, yet he has made the supreme sacrifice to the God, which fruit are subjected to those human who fed him for his life and now they are celebrating with his decapitated body with utmost satisfaction of being successful in pleasing God from some materialistic aspect. As per their belief, their wish has been fulfilled by the grace of God, so they are giving one life or two or more lives to the God in return. Here those lives are evaluated as materials like other offerings; such as costly metals, stones, foods and in all the cases, the weak and harmless lives are sacrificed in terms of these votive offerings (mannat).

They purchase or select it while making the wish to their God, then nurture it with supreme delicacy, because a sacrificer should be perfectly shaped, absent deformity. So they raise it like a family member, feed it with proper nutrition, keep it safe and in some cases, (mainly for large animals) massage butter in its throat systematically, so the muscles of neck remains soft i.e. easy to slash in a single blow. Because, if its head is not amputated in a single blow then, this signifies the God is not satisfied with the offering, so they have to go for another material for offering the God. So to ensure the cut in a single blow, mostly the volunteers stretch the neck of the animal in such manner that, if the animal released somehow it’ll not survive, as the enormous pressure should tear some muscles and cords around neck, which is also fetal.

While some self-sacrificial rituals are there in Hinduism and till practiced majorly by the Hindu devotees during different rituals in different regions; such as tongue piercing by long and sharp needles; hooking and lifting by sharp hooks and ropes; fire walking etc. Here the sufferings of the performer are dedicated to the God in order to wash away their sins, unlike torturing and killing an innocent animal.

Sacrifice or ‘bali’ is one of the oldest Hindu rituals, performed vastly even now a day, in 21st century. The sacrificial rituals were important and meaningful in history may be, but like many other rituals which were found meaningless over time and rejected; such as ‘Sati pratha’ (the widow burning ritual), alike this the animal sacrifice should be banned totally, because this is against humanity to slaughter harmless and helpless animals, where some popular temples across India has stopped practicing animal sacrifice considering this. Sacrifice is a very painful sight and heinous activity performed by some humans, to kill insensitively in the name of God and this performed not only by Hindus, but also by many other ancient religions; such as, Korban in Judaism, Qurban or Dhabihah in Islam, Sacrifice in Trinitarian Christianity etc.

In Sanskrit term used for animal sacrifice is 'bali', this means "tribute or offering" to Gods, which are generically animal or vegetable oblations. Hindu animal sacrificial rituals are mostly associated with Shaktism, where the female nature of Brahman is worshiped in the form of Kali, Durga and other different forms of Devi Sakti. The Kalika Purana (around 1000 CE) distinguishes bali (sacrifice), mahabali (great sacrifice), for the ritual killing of goats, elephant, respectively, though the reference to humans in Shakti theology is symbolic and done in effigy in modern times. The ritual requires slaying of the animal with a single stroke (Jhatka). Kalika Purana also depicted some tantrik practices, like use of the panchamakara (meat, wine, fish, parched grain and sexual intercourse) in a ritual context, which were forbidden in mainstream religion practices. A number Tantric Puranas specify the ritual for how the animal should be slayed. The three methods used by Hindus to kill an animal are Jhatka (decapitation with a single blow), piercing the heart (with a spike) and asphyxiation (squeezing the throb of heart, leads to death from lack of oxygen). 

During the timeline of Purana, i.e. 300 – 1600 CE, the sacrificial rituals were important due to the meat of those animals, which was not available much during that time period and those Hindus who eats meat prescribe meat killed by the jhatka method. Also the sacrificed meat was considered as ‘Prasad’ (gracious gift from God), which was the primary reason behind the selection of those animal as the material for offering.

Horse sacrifice (Image: Google)

Now if we look for the origin of this sacrificial culture (bali), it can be evidenced from the early Indian society, from the earliest literally records of India, i.e. the Rigveda (1500 – 500 BCE), where we can find some hymns dedicated to the power residing in the sacrificial implements, especially to the sacrificial alter, also to the weapons, soma, drums etc. and many hymns and prayers were recited to these sacrifices.

Some major sacrificial ceremony was there in Vedic culture, like Aswamedh yagna (Horse sacrifice) which is described in the Rigveda, the Shukla Yajurveda, the Taittiriya Shakha of Yajurveda, the Shatapatha Brahmana and in the Srauta-sutras of the Aitareya Brahmana and in the Kaushtikati Brahmana of the Rigveda. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad the symbolism of the sacrifice is described, where the horse is symbolizing the cosmos.

In the Vedas, there are detailed mention of animal sacrifices, such as mantras for the sacrifice of a Goat. In Rigveda the Jyotistoma sacrifice is introduced, in which three animal-sacrifices are performed, namely; Agnisomiya, Savaniya and Anubandhya. Agnisomiya was the simplest of all Soma sacrifices in which animal sacrifice played an important part; it required that a goat be sacrificed to Agni and Soma preceding the day of offering of nectar to the gods. In the Savaniya sacrifice, victims were offered throughout the day of offering to Agni. In the Anubandhya sacrifice either a barren cow or an ox was offered to Varuna and Mitra on the day of Soma sacrifice. The Yajurveda is considered the Veda of sacrifices and rituals, and consists of a number of animal sacrifices, such as mantras and procedures for the sacrifices of a white goat to Vayu, a calf to Sarasvati, a speckled ox to Savitry, a bull to Indra, a castrated ox to Varuna and so on.

Now if we analyze the importance of the ritual of sacrifice back that time period of Vedic religion (1500 – 500 BCE), besides importance of the meat (prasad), this led to the growth and development in the knowledge of mathematics and animal anatomy. As elementary mathematics was necessary to make the calculations which were required to establish the position of various objects in the sacrificial area and the frequent sacrifices of animals led to a knowledge of their anatomy. Also the Vedic society was a religion of the pastoral people and animal sacrifice is rampant in the pastoral society, where the older animals that can no longer produce milk or meat or used for breeding purposes, i.e. those who are no longer economically valuable are killed in order to lessen the burden of their owner. The Vedic religion reflected the patriarchal pastoral society and was materialistic in perspective; hence animal sacrifice was one way of destroying the old animals and thus this ritual had an important role in the society.

From the Vedic culture, the concept grew out of a vast cosmic sacrifice, as in the Ramayana, Rama performed the Ashvamedha yagna for becoming the Chakravartin emperor also, in the Mahabharata, Yudhishtra performed the Ashwamedha after winning the Kurukshetra war, to become the Chakravartin emperor. The Mahabharata also contains a description of an Ashvamedha performed by the Chedi king Uparichara Vasu; however, no animals were sacrificed. The rulers of the Gupta Empire, the Chalukya dynasty, and the Chola dynasty all performed the Ashvamedha.

While the Gita (holy book of Hindus) forbid animal sacrifice for any kind of spiritual formalities. The Gita never mentioned to practice any sacrificial ritual; in the Gita Lord Krishna emphasized the knowledge of morality in human and directs to follow the process of wholehearted prayer, absent violence for spiritual upliftment. In the Bhagavata Purana, Lord Krishna tells people not to perform animal sacrifices, although he emphasized, he resides in the soul of the sacrificial animal and he shares the pain given to any soul. Animal sacrifices are forbidden by the Bhagavata Purana in the Kaliyuga (the present age). The Brahma Vaivarta Purana describes animal sacrifices as kali-varjya (prohibited in the Kaliyuga). The Adi Purana, Brihan-naradiya Purana and Aditya Purana also forbid animal sacrifice in Kaliyuga. Also the ninth Vishnu Avatar, i.e. Gautama Buddha condemned animal sacrifice for any religious practices. He said that a sacrifice to Gods can not wash away sins or pledge any spiritual gain.

But till date this animal sacrificial rituals are being performed by the Hindus, in some cases is not even maintained by the proper performance of sacrifice. Majorly the Hindu temples placed in Assam and West Bengal in India and Nepal, where this takes place involves slaying of goats, roosters and sometimes male water buffaloes. In this fashion the religion practices is not based on any magico-ritual formulae; rather it stressed direct communication with the Gods through sacrifices of some vulnerable creatures. Here Gods are neither worshiped for the spiritual upliftment of the people, nor for any other abstract philosophical concept, but were invoked to grant material gains. Preciously the wish to sacrifice is a votive offering to God, where the animal is offered in fulfillment of a vow.

So, how this is justified now a day, to kill an innocent animal in fulfillment of one’s desire, which seems like proceeding some kind of give & take policy with the supreme power and becoming the reason behind the sufferings and death of another wonderful soul created by God!

Thanks and regards,

Milan Chatterjee

PS: *Animal sacrifice has turned up in almost all cultures, from the Hebrews to the Greeks and Romans (particularly the purifying ceremony Lustratio), Ancient Egyptians (for example in the cult of Apis) and from the Aztecs to the Yoruba. These sacrificial rituals are named and patterned differently for different religions, such as Korban for Judaism, Dhabihah for Islam, Bali for Hinduism. The sacrificial animal may be a sheep, a goat, a pig, a horse, a camel, a buffalo or a cow. The animal must be healthy and out of any deformities.

*Though the account of animal sacrifice has been decreased than earlier, but in a number of religious ceremonies of different religion, till practices this in a heavy amount. Animal sacrifice enormously occurs during the three-day-long Gadhimai festival in Nepal. In 2009 it was speculated that more than 250,000 animals were killed while 5 million devotees attended the festival.

*Also some human sacrificial rituals in different religions had been evidenced in the past, later these were banned and considered as murder by the laws of all nations.
Source: Google & Wikipedia
© Milan Chatterjee