While many call it a 'ritual' , I call it a SLAUGHTER.
ndia is God's own land, where people go to any extent to impress Him. We have been successful in showing some diversity here too, while some reach Him through poojas and idol worships or by Havans
many see self torture as a divine medium and some keep themselves in a safer position by constructing the path to God by using the corpse of animals.
In India, from smaller animals like hens and goats to larger ones like buffaloes, all have got a 'divine' cause of death- for the Almighty.
Devotees who worship by burning, torturing and piercing themselves are any day better than those who shed blood of animals because they are doing it to themselves by their own will!
The poor animals are killed to be presented as an offering or a tribute or an oblation to the God.
Some Hindus believe sacrificing an animal can wash away their sins.
I would rather suggest them to 'wash away' their sins in the holy waters of Ganga than in the blood of animals.
In the Phulpati festival, a goose is sacrificed.
People gather in a temple where the priest first worships the goose, tilaks it and bathe it.
The goose, would have been feeling good at the special treatment until its neck it chopped and the blood is offered to the idol of Goddess Durga.
Animals are usually killed using the 'Jhatka' method, where the animal is killed in a single blow.
This is because Hindus believe that it is a bad omen if the animal makes a sound before dying.
Some may sacrifice the animal by piercing its heart with a a spike or by choking it!
'God lives in his own creatures' is a line much unknown by the devotees who sought to impress their Deity but end up killing His own creatures.
The worst instance of animal sacrifice, I could discover was the Gandhimai festival.
This slaughter is held in Nepal but witness a huge participation of Indians.
This cruel way of worship takes place once in five years where 250,000 animals are killed in a month!
It is not one of those where a single small animal is killed, it is a MASS SACRIFICE where buffaloes are killed. As the dawn breaks, the festival officially opened with the sacrifice of two rats, two pigeons, a pig and a rooster in the main temple, to cheers of "Long Live Gadhimai".
In the main event, 250 appointed residents with traditional kukri knives began their task of decapitating more than 10,000 buffaloes in a dusty enclosure guarded by high walls.
And to make things worse and more inhumane this blood is not offered to the goddess but is drunk by the priest directly from the body of the sacrificed animal During, Ed-ul- Adha, Muslims of the country sacrifice a large mammal like a goat or a camel or sheep. Over 100 million are slaughtered during this 48 hour period
It is sad to know that we are foolish enough to believe that taking the life of an animal who does not have the tongue to protest can fulfill our wishes, wipe away our sins, make us stronger and can impress the God.
While animal sacrifice, in many places is no longer a popular creed, it is widely practiced in several parts of our country because it is not easy to explain the conservatives that it is NOT a ritual or culture it is murder and slaughter.
Maybe they would realize this only when God himself would descend and tell them -" I AM A VEGETARIAN !"
“Could a being create the fifty billion galaxies
each with two hundred billion stars
then rejoice in the smell of burning goat flesh?”
― Ron Patterson
India is INDEED God's own land !
By SHIVESH BHATIA ( http://shivesh-writerspoint.blogspot.in/ )
