Horse, killing and eating of Horse, Deification of Horse: The mythologization and demythologization of Horse-God theology in the world civilizations! (1)

Horse, killing and eating of Horse, Deification of Horse: The mythologization and demythologization of Horse-God theology in the world civilizations! (1)

Horse meat a taboo in the US and European countries: In recent years, there have been a lot of speeches and writings about beef eating, the right to eat and so on in India. However, the taboo of horse-meat has never been whispered here in India or discussed. Horse meat was also eaten as part of Germanic pagan religious ceremonies in Northern Europe, particularly ceremonies associated with the worship of Odin. It is not a generally available food in some English-speaking countries such as the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, Ireland, the United States, and English Canada. It is also taboo in Brazil, Israel, and among the Romani people and Jewish people the world over. Horse meat is not generally eaten in Spain, except in the north, but the country exports horses both as live animals and as slaughtered meat for the French and Italian markets. Horse meat is consumed in some North American and Latin American countries, but is illegal in some others.

Why the Americans abhors horse meat or Chevaline? No Aswamedha in USA!: Very often, Indians are / have been blamed for having medieval barbaric, heathenish and even satanic practices. How the “beef politics” has been going on is well known. However, historians, researchers and other experts do not tell Indian why the Americans do not eat horse meat or Chevaline! Killing and eating Chevaline (Aswamedha, अश्वमेध ) in the USA has been a taboo. Mohammedans have a taboo about pork and crow stew. The American media has plenty of information for hating horse meat giving the reasons for[1]:

1. Horses became taboo meat in the ancient Middle East, possibly because they were associated with companionship, royalty, and war[2].
2. The Book of Leviticus rules out eating horse, and in 732 CE, the Pope Gregory III instructed his subjects to stop eating horse because it was an “impure and detestable” pagan meat.
3. By the 16^th century, hippophagy—the practice of eating horse meat—had become a capital offence in France.
4. America banned it, as the Pilgrims had brought the European prohibition on eating horse flesh, inherited from the pre-Christian tradition.
5. Besides, horse meat was considered un-American. Nineteenth-century newspapers abound with ghoulish accounts of the rise of hippophagy in the Old World. In these narratives, horse meat is the food of poverty, war, social breakdown, and revolution—everything new migrants had left behind.
6. In early September 2006, the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act passed the U.S. House, with Republican John Sweeney calling the horse meat business “one of the most inhumane, brutal and shady practices going on in the United States today.”
7. The 2014 Obama budget once more ruled out a revival. Meanwhile, the horses continued to be shipped to Mexico and Canada.

The horse-meat politics of the USA has been worse than the beef politics of India, but none points out[3] . And still none has gusts to lift the ban equivocally[4]. There also, very often questions are raised[5].

Till the 19^th century, horse sacrifice was there in Europe: Dr David Anthony gives the reasons why American and Europeans have been uncomfortable in eating horse-meat[6]. The aversion felt by most modern Americans and Europeans originated as a religious taboo in the early Middle Ages. The sacrifice of a horse and the consumption of its sanctified flesh were central parts of very widespread pagan rites in ancient Europe. The early Christian church forbade the consumption of horseflesh because it was so regularly associated with pre-Christian ceremonies. Pope Gregory III (731-741CE) banned the eating of horses as “an unclean and execrable act.” Although the papal ban seems to have greatly reduced the consumption of horseflesh in most of Europe, the ritual sacrifice of horses continued for a surprisingly long time. Horses were slaughtered at the funerals of King John of England in 1216 and the Holy Roman Emperor Karl IV in 1378[7]. As recently as 1781, during the funeral of cavalry General Friedrich Kasimir at Trier, his horse was killed and deposited in his grave. Even more surprising, churches were sanctified with horse sacrifices, perhaps conducted secretly by the workmen who built the church buildings. Modern construction workers found horse bones embedded in the floor of St. Botolph’s at Boston, Lincolnshire, and in the belfry of a church at Elsdon, Northumberland. Eight horse skulls were discovered in 1883 in the stonework of the pulpit at Bristol Street meeting house in Edinburgh, Scotland; others were discovered embedded in the foundation of the choir stalls at Llandraff Cathedral, Wales. As late as the 18th century, Dutch peasants would place a horse skull on the roof to keep bad luck away from the home. Therefore, it is evident that horses were sacrificed before and after the completion f the construction of the Churches, as a practice followed.

The system of belief, non-belief etc: In every believing system, whether theistic or atheistic, agnostic or Gnostic or otherwise, certain beliefs, ideas and viewpoints have been kept in tight, whether they are questioned by others or not. Invariably, the atheistic, agnostic, and such other non-believing ideologies only make a huge noise, as if their belief is superior to others. It is well-known that any person, whether he knows the subject or not, he can go on asking questions, because, he is not bothered about getting any rational, scientific or acceptable answer to his questions, but, interested in asking more questions. Thus, the Indian belief-system has been under attack by many other belief-systems, ideologists and dogmatic experts. And modern, ideologized and politicized Indians have been more fashioned to ask questions. A stage reaches, where, the questioner himself loses his logic of “point of no return,” but, starts again from the beginning.

Horse-headed Deity in Hindu religion: Indians have been celebrating today – 03-08-2020 as Hayagriva Jayanti to commemorate the birth of Horse-God Vishnu! But, the horse was considered as divine by many civilizations. Irish, German, Etruscan, Mycenaean, Minoan, Etruscan, Greek, Chinese, Japan considered horse divine. However, it is not known why they are not celebrating such festivals, every year in their respective cultures and countries. The Horse-headed incarnation of God is traced back to the Vedas by the scholars[8]. The narratives continued through Agama and tantric texts, because of the Jaina and Buddhist intrusion, interpretation and adoption in their worship, rites and rituals. The iconic, sculptural and painting representations also varied accordingly. In the Vedic myth of Dadhyanc Atharvana (Dadhyanc son of Atharvan, horse-headed Vedic Seer) the horse-head is connected with the idea of secret knowledge[9].

The Pravargya Brahmana of Shathapatha narrates a story in which Vishnu himself cuts off of his head and it is replaced with a horse-head. His head becoming Sun, and other parts going to other cardinal points etc., prove cosmic and geological aspects happened figuratively. It also gives these details[10], “The devas were sacrificing and toiling with the headless yagnya. Dadhyanc atharvaNa knew the secret of putting back the head of the sacrifice and hence completing it. Indra warned Dadynac that if he revealed this secret to anybody, he would cut his head off. Ashvins wanted to learn the secret and hence they approached Dadhyanc. He told them about Indra’s warning and hesitated. They told him that they would cut his head off, replace it with a horse’s head and then he can teach them. Once, Indra cuts the head (i.e. the horse’s head), they would fix back the original head. Agreeing to this, Dadhyanc revealed the secret to the Ashvins after they replaced his head with the horse’s head. Indra did as he warned and the ashvins put back his original head.”

Initially, in the Vedic period and literature, there was no sacrifice, but, later, such intrusions were found. It has been interpreted that Brahmans opposed sacrifices. Actually, these narratives could be interpolated and misinterpreted by the Jains and Buddhists to suit their “Matra-tantra-yantra” practices. This points to the important role to be played by Hayagrlva in Tantrism, as was described more by the Dutch scholar H. van Gulik[11]. That the Hayagriva concept could penetrate into the Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese culture through Buddhism proves the impact of Indian philosophy and way of life. The transmission might have taken place through the Buddhist missionaries and the traders through the well-accepted trade routes.

© K. V. Ramakrishna Rao

06-08-2020

[1] The Atlantic,The Troubled History of Horse Meat in America , Susanna Forrest, JUNE 8, 2017.

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/06/horse-meat/529665/

[3]  USA Today, Ban on slaughtering horses for meat gets last-minute renewal in spending law Trump signed, Erin Kelly, Published: March 16, 2018, 4.12 pm.

[4] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/03/26/ban-slaughtering-horses-meat-gets-last-minute-renewal-spending-law-trump-signed/459076002/

[5] The Washington Post, Could Congress put horsemeat back on the menu in America?, By Maura Judkis, July 14, 2017 at 11:38 p.m. GMT+5:30

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2017/07/14/could-congress-put-horsemeat-back-on-the-menu-in-america/

[6] Dr David Anthony, Let them eat horses, http://silkroadfoundation.org/artl/horsemyth.shtml

[7] Duch, Anna Maria. The Royal Funerary and Burial Ceremonies of Medieval English Kings, 1216-1509. Diss. University of York, 2016.

[8]  D. Sridhara Babu, Hayaagriva – The Horse-Headed Deity in Indian culture, Sri Venkateswara University, Oriental Research Institute, Tirupati, 1990.

[9] The horse is head, the source of transcendent knowledge, symbolic of time.Dadhyañc Ātharvaṇa is mentioned in RV in the context of Pravargya (lost head of the then incomplete yajna. The legend is narrated in Jaiminiya Brahmana 3.64 9in fusion with Cyavana legnd in JBr. 3.120-128) and ŚatBr. 14.1.1.1 ff. The JBr.

[10] K. Amshuman, A yajur-vedic legend from shathapatha brAhmaNa, http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ramanuja/archives/oct03/msg00009.html

[11] Robert Hans van Gulik, Hayagrīva: The Mantrayānic Aspect of Horse-cult in China and Japan, Briill, Leiden, Netherlands, 1935.