Was the term Bakri-Id adapted from the Pasu Medha/Ashwa Medha Yegnas? an enquiry. K.V.Vishwanathan

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Was the term Bakri-Id adapted from the Pasu Medha/Ashwa Medha  Yegnas of the Vedas?

To understand this we need to first know the meaning of the Yegnas, Sacrifice and Medhas as most Hindus themselves may have differently interpreted this.

All the Yegnas purely represent the concretized version of the teachings furnished in the Gnana-Kanda of the Vedas. The object of the Vedic Yegnas prescribed throughout the Karma-Kanda, is to sacrifice in the fire of Gnana all the gross conceptions and illusions of the unscientific cosmological conceptions of man, so that he may thereby secure the knowledge of Brahman. All other interpretations are sheer misinterpretations whether they proceed from the West or from the East, from the orthodoxy or the heterodoxy. 

The essence of the whole subject is explained in a single technical term called  Agnishomeeyam. It is the Pasu that pertains to the Agnishoma that has to be sacrificed.

A¶I;aemIy< pzumal-et, 

 ( Agneshomeeyam Pashumaalabheth) is the exact Vedic injunction

 given. pZytIit pzu>,  Pashyatheethi Pashuhu.

All the gross conceptions of the cosmos, logically reduced to 7 Jyotishtoma sacrifices refer to the sacrifice of the Pasu  ( Pasu refers to the  brute animal nature in man). 

Even the term Aal-et  (Aalabheth)  means only to uproot. It is  historically, philologically, etymologically and arithmetically certain that no butchering of dumb animals was/is ordained anywhere within the sacred Karma-Kanda of the Vedas. No  one in the East or West could be permitted to take undue advantage of the foolishness of a few ignorant Pandits and Dikshits, from whom the westerners had also learnt Sanskrit and the Vedas and to criticize The Dharma on that false pretext.

There is a black sheep in many a family. Nobody wants to deny it. There are even now murderers in every civilized country. None can deny it. No sensible Hindu in India in the past has ever sacrificed any animal in the name of religion; nor has he ( in the past) eaten the decaying flesh of dead animals. His Dharma ( referred as religion by the West) never permits such follies and cruelties much less orders them. In fact, the misfortunes of the Hindus all along may well be traced to (i) their vegetarian ancestry and (ii) to their owning a methodical and sacred religion ( to be read as Dharma) . Thus the Hindu became an eye-sore to every carnivorous nationality.

Many a nation attempt to establish somehow or other that the Vedic Indian was a flesh-eater. If flesh-eating is a sign and proof of civilization as it is practically reckoned among the Western nations, vegetarianism is doubtless another proof of the barbarism of the Hindus in India. Why not they condemn them boldly for their vegetarianism too? That would be an honest method of abusing. But they know very well that flesh-eating and butchering were and are not very respectable traits. 

Every alien nation is thus smarting under that guilt feeling or culpable defect. That may be the reason why the blessed historians and the Sanskritists of the West seems to be unanimously trying to pull down the vegetarian Hindu to their own carnivorous level. This is exactly the secret of dishonestly attributing animal-sacrifice to the Vedic Yegnas. That they are not prepared to leave off carrion-eating is also an established fact here. We could therefore in no way respect or recognize them either as interpreters of our sacred literature or as the historians of Indian affairs. In addition to this there are many Hindus who have started eating meat and flesh.

Now coming to the origin of the word Bakri-Id,  ‘Id’ is the same word as Ishti or Yegna and Bakrid or cow-killing would have been (ill) copied from Pasu-medha or Ashwa-medha .

 A¶I;aemIy< pzumal-et. Agneeshomeeyam Pashumaalabheth) "Root out the Pasu in the form of Agni and Soma.” This is a matter which many learned Vedic scholars would also agree and admit here. Agni and Soma refer to Vidya and Avidya, Mind and Matter, Prana and Apana etc.

pZytIit pzu>. Pashyatheethi Pashuhu) All those that are perceivable by the senses are Pasus referring thereby to gross material conceptions. For religious (read Dharmic)  advancement, man must soar above this gross materiality and secure higher, subtler and more philosophical conceptions of them. This is the significance of the Pasu-medha. 

Some illiterate  Pundits/Dikshits in the  past must have senselessly  misunderstood this as animal-sacrifice and substituted Aja or Sheep which term also they misunderstood without knowing its technical significance.  And, thanks to the mis-interpretations and ill copying of our sacred literatures, many dumb animals are killed, sacrificed and eaten off across. 

Ajs<}ain bIjain Dag< nae hNtumhRw. “(Ajasangyaani Bheejani Chaagam No Hanthumahartha) "Aja (A£j) here denotes seeds that have not sprouted, referring thereby to the Sanchita Karmas of man. No four-legged sheep which is also called Aja should therefore be foolishly butchered.” Whenever there are two meanings  for the same word, the context need to be ascertained.

The Pasu and the Aja as technically used do not therefore represent cows or sheep. The word Go also has similarly its technical meaning. It is too often confounded with cow or Pasu. Go in Sanskrit has several meanings. Vide Amara-kosa ( Thesaurus in Sanskrit by Amara Simha) Go is technically used to denote light or knowledge, as in Go-kulam, Gopi, Gopa, Go-vardhanam etc. It is misinterpreted as cow or Pasu in all of them. Pasu is technically used to denote gross materiality. But in the ill-copying and ill-borrowing both the terms Go and Pasu are mistranslated as cow. Prof. Max Muller & Co ( of the 19^th century fame) have mis-translated gvamyn<  (Gavamayan) as “Cow’s walks”. What better rendering could then be expected from these so called sanskritists ?

There were and are NO Yegnas commonly performed by Brahmanas where birds or animals are butchered.

‘Mriga Pakshi for sacrifice refer to the beastly passions and the Indriyas of man which should always be devoured by the Brahmana ( this has been wrongly interpreted as killing of birds or animals and few pieces of its flesh is eaten by the priest or the brahmanas-(sic!!))

Unless the material desires pertaining to the five gross elements basically described as Pancha Nakhas are swallowed up, the brahma Kshetram can never be perceived.

Ahimsa being the fundamental principle of Hinduism, the butchering of animals for food was/is not sanctioned, much less for religious purposes. The Yegnas as we have noticed refer only to the sacrifice of beastly passions and mean desires. 

ydÚa> pué;ae laeke tdÚaStSy devta>. (Yadannaaha Purusho Loke Thadannasthasya Devathaha) "The Deva should be offered only the same food the devotee eats.” 

No animal sacrifice is therefore permitted much less recommended in Hinduism. Killing cows, sheep or any other animal is strictly prohibited. 

          
Adapted from book- Inside Out- The Philosophical Enquiry of Hindu Dharma- now available at Amazon.

HariOm