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The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 2 (of 2) cover

The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 2 (of 2)

Chapter 20: Milk.
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About This Book

The work presents a systematic ethnographic survey of northern Indian popular religion and folk-lore, recording beliefs, rituals, and everyday preventative practices. It examines the evil eye and its remedies, tree and serpent cults, totemic and fetish practices, animal worship, witchcraft and black art, and seasonal rural festivals, drawing on local testimony and observed customs. The account describes naming taboos, protective marks and charms, sacrificial and ceremonial forms, and the social logic that underpins ritual responses to misfortune. Chapters conclude with bibliographic references and an index to aid further study.

Milk.

So with the products of the sacred cow, which are, as might have been expected, most valuable for this purpose. Hence the use of Ghilor or clarified butter in the public and domestic ritual. Milk for the same reason is used in offerings and sprinkled on the ground as an oblation. Cowdung, in particular, is regarded as efficacious. After the death or birth impurity the house is carefully plastered with a mixture of cowdung and clay. No cooking place is pure without it, and the corpse is cremated with cakes of cowdung fuel. Even the urine of the cow is valued as a medicine and a purificant. The cow guards the house from evil, and every rich man keeps a cow so that his glance may fall on her when he wakes from sleep, and he regards her as the guardian of the household.