Holy Cow! The Apotheosis of Zebu, or Why the Cow is Sacred in Hinduism [*].

Abstract

This essay revisits a debate that took place in the social sciences over the "sacred-cow controversy" for the purpose of ecological musing. The debate was stimulated largely by Marvin Harris, whose cultural materialist position reduced the symbolism of the cow in Hinduism to a set of irrational beliefs. His alternative was to see the cow's sacredness in terms of a calculus of calories. Needless to say, his work led to criticism from both anthropologists and humanists. In thc first part of the paper, I trace the history of the controversy, then move on to ...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.