Skip to content Skip to navigation

Why animal sacrifice

The Oxford Dictionary defines the word sacrifice as the voluntary relinquishing of something valued or surrender of possession as offering to deity.

Animal sacrifice (of goats and buffaloes) is otherwise rare but is held on certain festivals in contemporary India, and Sri Lanka, especially to honor the Mother Goddess (Durga) by the followers of certain cult groups of Hindus belonging to the sect of Shaktism. Due to severe condemnation by most other Hindus, calling this as a barbaric act, these animal sacrifices are quickly disappearing in India and Sri Lanka. Among the Hindus of Nepal, and certain sections of Bengal and Assam animal sacrifices are common even today, not only for the Mother Goddess, but also for almost all deities of the Hindu pantheon. The Hindu way of slaughtering the animal may be less painful than others, as it involves an immediate severing of the whole neck of the animal by one quick stroke of a sword or an axe (otherwise great calamities are believed to befall the sacrificer), rather than slitting of the throat.

In ancient times it was also common to offer the life of a human being to a god. The Aztecs sacrificed thousands of victims (often slaves and servants were killed or buried alive along with dead kings in order to provide service in the afterlife) A similar tradition also existed in China. The Celts and German people are among the European peoples who practiced human sacrifice in the past.

The human race is a shrewdest of all races on the earth. The ancient people steeped in pagan culture and primitive superstition believed that human sacrifice would placate the enraged god and expiate their sins, this practice was particularly common among the agricultural people who sought to guarantee the fertility of the soil or avert calamities in the form of flood or famine and therefore followed the ritual of human sacrifice. But gradually when the covers of primitivism were dispelled man thought it best to put an end to this savage ritual which was putting their own lives at peril. But they found an easier way out by replacing the human by innocent voiceless animals that cannot protest these barbaric acts and neither realise their end till the final blow.

The word sacrifice is to give up a possession dear to us in such a case how can an animal be representative of something dear. As the animal to be sacrificed is bought minutes before being sacrificed for a few hundreds of rupees. The devotee seeking divine blessing is in no way attached to the sacrificial animal therefore it cannot be termed as sacrifice rather it is plain slaughter or killing of an animal.

The strides of modernism has touched our entire lives than why is it that we are still steeped in religious superstition. Our culture had been plagued by other evils like Sati but we have moved away from that era. We have realised the futility of sati system. Just as we have graduated from earthen lamps to halogen lights powered by electricity similarly its time we shed our misunderstood religious trappings and take on its greater spiritual meaning of “to live and let live”.

Prayer should not lead to negativity of thoughts and actions when we create a hue and cry over killing of humans what right do we have to initiate the killing of an animal. Isn’t it time we graduated to the practice of a bloodless sacrifice in the form of flowers and fruits or exercise sacrifice in the true sense of the term by relinquishing an object of desire and not a living creature pulsating with life to fulfil a mere superstition.
Author info

Rituparna Goswami Pande's picture

Journalist, writer

Comments

jaay's picture

I was witness to such an incident when I was child, I saw the buffalo being chased and slaughtered in the garb of religious ritual. Anyways, the practice of Human sacrifice was common until Britisher’s banned it in 19th Century and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi introduced Vedas and called the sacrifice to be symbolic. Not only in India, but it was prominent across the globe. Like the Mapuche, the Israelites once climbed mountains to talk with God. When the Jewish reformers of the 7th century BC campaigned to suppress human sacrifice, they began by killing the shaman-priests who performed these rites on their own altars. They destroyed hill-shrines identical to the high-mountain shrines still used by shamans in South America. The Mosaic Law received from a mountain now made bloody Moses a heretic. Animal sacrifice was confined to the temple, and human sacrifice forbidden. And not forget, after the Crucifixion of Jesus, it was widely seen as the SACRIFICE and Christians were offered salvation in the blood and body of a sacrifice. If the Crucifixion was the final human sacrifice, then the "blame" for the murder of Jesus was thrust upon the Jews. Many Christians were convinced that Jews were devils who secretly mocked Easter by sacrificing a kidnapped Christian child on a cross. Centuries of anti-Semitism led to the Third Reich, whose mission was to purify the world. Well, the list is endless, and what, all in the name of religion. Anyways I just wanted to make sure that readers did not get an idea that we were not the only ELITE people to indulge in this. Animal sacrifice was replaced with COCONUT, again as a symbol, but probably due to illiteracy and awareness this is still prevalent. But that leaves me with another question, what when this sacrificed is offered by educated, and respectable citizen’s, which is not un-common? Nice article.
navin jain's picture

beautiful article and the wordings 'The devotee seeking divine blessing is in no way attached to the sacrificial animal therefore it cannot be termed as sacrifice rather it is plain slaughter or killing of an animal.'
navin jain's picture

beautiful article and the wordings 'The devotee seeking divine blessing is in no way attached to the sacrificial animal therefore it cannot be termed as sacrifice rather it is plain slaughter or killing of an animal.'

Pages

Add new comment

Assamese Translator

Assam Times seeks English to Assamese translators!
Join our volunteer team.
Email editor@assamtimes.org.

Random Stories

Saradha: ED, CBI question Riniki

15 Feb 2015 - 7:46pm | AT News
The Enforcement Directorate, CBI grilled Riniki Bhuyan Sarma for several hours in connection with Saradha scam on Sunday.Top officials told Assam Times Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma’s wife who is the boss...

Biker dead in Duliajan mishap

7 Oct 2015 - 6:43am | AT News
One person died and another sustained serious injury when a bike rammed into another biker in Duliajan on Tuesday. The mishap took place at Chiringkhat where Phuleswar Lahon who was riding on his...

Media workshop on 'Tracking MPs amd MLAs' concludes

17 Sep 2008 - 2:38am | Nava Thakuria
A media workshop titled 'Tracking the activities of MPs and MLAs' was organized at Guwahati Press Club today (September 16, 2008), where variuos aspects of media reporting on the functioning of...

Tangla scribe awarded

26 Mar 2013 - 1:52pm | Jayanta Kumar Das
Udalguri District Journalist Union has awarded Diganta Kumar Sarma,a young journalist of Tangla the “Hem Chandra Talukdar Rural Journalist Award,2013” at a function organized at Orang on March 24....

Other Contents by Author

This women’s day I salute those unsung ‘heroes’ who have withstood the onslaught of fickle fate. No they are not faces in the crowd rather they are the crowd whose faces we don’t remember. They are those who are living in the periphery of life, battling everyday issues of home and hearth.I bow my head in reverence to the grit of Mausam’s mother who put aside her grief after losing her only son to Ewing’s Sarcoma in order to stand as a pillar of strength to her broken husband who unable to bear the tempest of misfortune had almost lost touch with reality. I like many others was a helpless bystander of the tale of woe that had fallen like a bolt from the blue on this poor family.  But...
If I had wings and were a birdWould travel the world and orbit the EarthOr had I been a butterfly Eclectic colors would be mineI would hover over trees, flutter over blooms, On a spiritual high, I would go into a swoonShould I be a fish and swim the seaPass through oceans or haunt a reefWith beautiful corals for companyThe heart would leap at Nature’s bountyHad I been a fir tree insteadMy leaves would flutter in snow headsThe flirty wind would kiss my soulThe icy breeze to lift me up, life would be on a rollWhat if I were the season – SpringOrchid blooms, newness to ring inNo, no let me be the sky, the endless blueFar from earth, to keep a watch on youBut then my mind looks to the...
I, KazirangaShedding tears of bloodMy children, the four leggedIn men no longer trust.God’s blessed beings are theyRoaming the wildsIn search of prey and hayOften trapped by wily menCaught unawaresBy a poaching handLeft to dieWith bleeding woundsWith their hornsCut by forest goonsNo where to runNo where to hideTheir haven encroached by thugsTheir skies taken over by two legged bugsFeigned protectionI don’t seekI, KazirangaWill continue to bleedIf there is no messiahLet my children not desireAny solace from cruel fateBut march towards extinction and Heaven’s gate.
The fact that we need to celebrate Women’s Day portends that all is not well in a women’s world. Or else why would we need to single out a day for millions of women who have equal rights and status in the world they inhabit. We don’t have a men’s day which is evidence enough that all is hunky dory with their race.The UN theme for International Women's Day 2013 is "A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women," while International Women's Day 2013 has declared the year's theme as The Gender Agenda: Gaining Momentum. But then is it really gaining momentum?As we celebrate Women’s Day today a woman is probably being raped in our rape capital i.e. Delhi or any other...
Lately every morning we have been waking up to screaming headlines of animal killings in the newspapers. Rhinos being poached with their horns brutally severed and left to die,elephants electrocuted or hunted down, their bodies mutilated and left to bleed to death. Gory pictures of animal atrocities splashed in every newspaper, every channel. It really makes one ponder as to how low humans can stoop to gratify their covetous desire for money. Twisted minds are targetting the animal kingdom, mute creatures, innocent beings who do not care nor bother to know how our world has become a slave to money. The world Heritage site Kaziranga National park has seen 20 rhino killings this year and a...
All Hindus become epitomes of excitement to the run up to the festival of the auspicious Durga puja. Pandals coming up everywhere, idols being given finishing touches, revellers thronging the markets, discount offers, designer wear on sale and so on. Everyone is under the grip of puja fever and the associated excitement.But for once if we shift our focus away from ourselves and our frivolous acts and ponder over the plights of those innocent animals that would be sacrificed during the puja offerings, I am sure the smiles in our faces would be wiped off. At least the smiles would vanish from those faces who have a little compassion for the four legged. Imagine the little pigeons, a symbol...
From bedraggled beggars on the streets to the suit clad brokers on Wall Street – the ubiquitous cell phone is everywhere, in every pocket irrespective of the rich / poor status of its owners. It is no longer an item of luxury albeit it’s a must have today, a necessary evil. For technology comes with a price and the technology behind mobile phones is sure to make mankind pay a heavy price – the price of health and safety. The recent furore created in the media worldwide over the possible hazareds of mobile phone radiation has made us sit up and take note of the pros and cons of using the innocent looking mobile handset which had till date so surely and surreptitiously...
Man is an animal first and a social animal later. However, our ‘social’ status has failed to erase our animal instincts, which lies dormant in our basic dispositions. The urge to spread violence, the need to kill, and the thirst to quench our carnal desires are proof that there is still some animal in us. These urges raise their ugly heads in the form of homicides, rape and molestation incidents, and mob violence etc putting mankind to shame. The dangerous of all is our affinity towards the mob mentality that threatens to ensnare us at the slightest pretext and at the slightest of provocation. The term “mob mentality” is used to refer to unique behavioral...
The mellifluous tinkle of the Sarod permeated the atmosphere under a canopy of twinkling stars and a soft breeze that emanated from the somber Nilachal hill. Ustaad Amjad Ali Khan and his sons Amaan and Ayaan performed at the open amphitheatre in the Kamakhya temple premises striking a divine chord in all our hearts. The setting couldn’t have been more striking. The silhouette of the sanctuary at the backdrop and the stupendous performances of maestros were the perfect mode of the two day Kameshwari Music and Dance festival 2010. Dance and music have been an inherent part of temples in India since times immemorial. In order to appease the gods these art forms have always been...
“The Assam State Zoo encompassing over 130 hectares of land boasts of an astonishing collection of some rare and extinct species of wild animals settled comfortably in their natural habitat.” This is how a website describes the zoo in our city. However, the ‘stay’ of the animals there is far from ‘comfortable’. The captive animals in small enclosures with hardly room for free movement is a far cry from comfortable. The Assam state Zoo boasts of white tigers, one horned rhinos, Swamp tapirs and leopards to name a few. The zoo is also prosperous in the avian branch and plays host to rare species of birds. Sadly, the animals are caged for better viewing of...