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Hindu Culture of Offering Milk & Honey - Evolution or Devolution?

In India, followers of religions like Hindu and Jain assign a very holy status to animal milk. Every year, in innumerable events, millions of liters of milk is offered to several idols, temples and statues which ultimately flows down the drains.

People ain’t aware of the cruelty and violence inherent in animal milk. They are so ignorant that they feel milk is something pious and is something good to offer to their lord and this will make Him happy!

Normally it’s the idol or symbol (Shivalinga) of Hindu Lord Shiva who is offered milk and honey along with other things. But most of these people are not aware of the mythological stories behind this ritual.

Lord Shiva was an animal lover

Lord Shiva himself never used to drink any milk because He was an animal lover and was very concerned about them. It so happened once, during the event of churning of the oceans, a lot of poison erupted and all demigods came to Lord Shiva to rescue the world. So Lord Shiva consumed all the poison and held it in His throat. The poison was too hot for his body and His throat turned blue. Although the river Ganges was said to be residing in His hairs, it wasn’t enough to chill the resultant hotness from that poison. So everyone requested him to consume animal milk for bringing in some relief.

Since Lord Shiva was very concerned for animals, he was very reluctant to consume their milk. So he sought permission from milk to consume him (yes, milk is personified in this mythological story) and milk happily sacrificed himself for the common good.

This complete story is mentioned in the Hindu scriptures Vishnu Puran & Bhagwat Puran. Followers interpreted it as their Lord likes milk and started offering and anointing milk to Him on a daily basis. In fact, every offering to the Lord is done to get some desired results. According to Shiva Puran, milk is offered by the couples who are childless and desires a child soon. So offering milk fulfill the desire of bearing a baby. But today, people aren’t aware of this too and everyone mindlessly starts offering milk; whether they desire a child or not 😉.

Helicopter is used to bring cow's milk to this temple daily

Situated at the altitude of about 12,000 feet, Kedarnath is one of the most celebrated temples of Lord Shiva. It is one of the chardhams (4 pilgrimages) of Uttarakhand in Himalayas. The weather condition there is so extreme that these temple is closed during the winter months. This year, the temple was opened only last month. But the weather is still too cold there. So cold, that the temple cow can’t survive in that weather. Therefore, the cow is taken to a lower altitude.

Since the temple is open and needs to be worshipped daily, a helicopter is used to get the milk of the cow to the temple daily. But when Lord Shiva needed milk for the cooling effect only; then why would he need any milk in such a cold weather! No one wants to contemplate on it. But they would just keep performing all the rituals blindly.

Fire Brigade was used to waste 21000 l of milk at this temple

100 miles away from my place, there is a Lord Shiva’s temple called Charbhuja Nath Temple in Bhilwara district. During a religious event last week, the whole temple was bathed in milk …and it’s a huge temple. Can you imagine how much milk was needed?

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21,000 litres of milk! A Fire Extinguisher vehicle was used to sprinkle milk everywhere. People take pride in creating some world record by using a fire service vehicle for the first time in the world to waste such huge quantity of milk. How shameful and disgusting!

None else but the local Member of Legislative Assembly inaugurated and sprinkled milk on the temple. The concept is so ingrained in the society that even MLA, MP or Ministers don’t think about their own actions.

Here I leave you with some questions:

• What would a mother think if her milk is sprayed like this to end up in drains instead of giving it to her starving baby?

• Is offering milk in temples any different than animal-sacrifice?

• How would you convince such a society to stop performing such cruel and mindless rituals?

All ideas and thoughts from you are welcome.

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