306
The Veneration of the Cow in India.
bull as his attendant, the rise of the cult of Krishna, the adoption of the animal into the domestic ritual conducted under Brahman supervision,—these were all developments of the same movement, which ended in the adoption of the sanctity of the cow as one of the chief bonds of connection between the many rival sects, each provided with its own body of dogma and ritual, which now form the amorphous mass of beliefs constituting Hinduism as we observe it at the present day.
In the death struggle which orthodox Hinduism is now waging against the intrusive Western culture, the beliefs we have been considering will doubtless play a prominent part. But this is a matter for the statesman, not for the student of comparative religion.
