That Game

The most frustrating thing about being a Hindu is being asked if you worship cows. Just because we are not allowed to eat cows doesn’t mean that we worship them. We respect them, but they are not our Gods. It is like going up to a Christian and asking him if he worships nuns, or asking a Jew if he worships a rabbi. When we go down a street and see a cow we do not immediately get on our knees and start bowing and praising them. Cows are just not allowed to be eaten!

The reasons that we cannot eat cows have nothing to do with religious beliefs either. Just because Hindus are not allowed to eat them does not mean it has anything to do with Hinduism. In Ancient Indian times, everyone was Hindu. We used buffalo, bulls, and ox to help us farm and transport us. We milked them for drink and we used them for labor. Then the British came to India and started killing these beasts for food. They only used the cows for food, and after they killed the cows the animals had no use to us, of course. Why kill them for just one use that lasts for a couple of days when you could get a dozen other uses from them for fifty days? That is one of the main reasons that we can’t eat cows.

The second reason is because Hindus have this thing called dharma (pronounced duh-r-m). Dharma is our morals. It is our duties as a human being. If you follow your dharma then you get good karma (pronounced kuh-r-m). Like I said, in Ancient India everyone used cows to help them. It is not right to kill the creatures that had aided us the most in our everyday lives. Our morals were not to use an animal for a few days to help us plow fields and transport goods and then just backstab it by chopping its head off and cook its meat. That would give us very bad karma and it was just not right. That is why Hindus do not eat cow meat.