Note 87 — Chapter IV · ANIMAL-WORSHIP.

The respect paid to the cow appears everywhere in folk-lore. We have the cow Kâmadhenû, known also as Kâmadughâ or Kâmaduh, the cow of plenty, Savalâ, “the spotted one,” and Surabhî, “the fragrant one,” which grants all desires. Among many of the lower castes the cow-shed becomes the family temple.87 In the old ritual, the bride, on entering her husband’s house, was placed on a red bull’s hide as a sign that she was received into the tribe, and in the Soma sacrifice the stones whence the liquor was produced were laid on the hide of a bull. When a disputed boundary is under settlement, a cow skin is placed over the head and shoulders of the arbitrator, who is thus imbued with the divine influence, and gives a just decision. It is curious that until quite recently there was a custom in the Hebrides of sewing up a man in the hide of a bull, and leaving him for the night on a hill-top, that he might become a spirit medium.88 The pious Hindu touches the cow’s tail at the moment of dissolution, and by her aid he is carried across the dread river of death. I have more than once seen a criminal ascend the scaffold with the utmost composure when he was allowed to grasp a cow’s tail before the hangman did his office. The tail of the cow is also used in the marriage ritual, and the tail of the wild cow, though nowadays only used by grooms, was once the symbol of power, and waved over the ruler to protect him from evil spirits. Quite recently I found that one of the chief Brâhman priests at the sacred pool of Hardwâr keeps a wild cow’s tail to wave over his clients, and scare demons from them when they are bathing in the Brahma Kund or sacred pool.