Cow Protection in Sinhala Buddhist Sri Lanka*

James StewartUniversity of Tasmania

Cow veneration is a practice commonly associated with the Indian subcon-tinent.1 Although cow veneration is a practice widely studied in the case of the Indian mainland, it is not something typically associated with the island nation of Sri Lanka. This seems to be the case in spite of the fact that many aspects of Sinhala Buddhist culture are heavily influenced by cultural norms and practices originating from India and from Tamil culture in Sri Lanka.2

* I would like to acknowledge the enormous contribution of my friends and colleagues Chris Clark (University of Sydney), Liam Bright (Carnegie Mellon University) and Martin Kovan (University of Melbourne), and Shihara Fernando for their helpful suggestions and corrections. I must also thank Professor Jeff Malpas (University of Tasmania) for his guidance and advice on this paper. Finally, I would like to thank the reviewers of this article for their valuable feedback.

1. The Sinhala translations in this paper are all my own. The romanisation follows the United Nations Romanisation Systems for Geographical Names (Sinhalese) (2003). Note 1: there may be spelling variation within this article. This is due to the fact that the texts I am examining do not themselves agree on correct spelling. The romanisation reflects these individual differences. Note 2: the Pāli translation supplied later in the paper is K.N. Norman’s translation of a passage from the Suttanipāta: The Group of Discourses (Suttanipāta), trans. K.R. Norman (Lancaster: Pali Text Society, 2006).

2. The connection between Indian-Hindu cultural norms and Sinhala cultural norms is documented well by Gombrich and Obeyeskere. The particular example they supply is the way that Hindu customs and practices have come to influence Sinhala Buddhist traditions on the island. This is particularly evident in the case of Kataragama dĕviyŏ whereby Hindu religious activities have been adopted by Sinhala Buddhist devotees: R. Gombrich and G. Obeyesekere, Buddhism Transformed (Princeton University Press, 1988), 163–202. Kataragama dĕviyŏ is the Sinhala name for Skanda (Murugan). He is a popular deity in Sri Lanka amongst both the Sinhala and Tamils. In general, Sinhala Buddhist people are

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Like their Indian and Sri Lankan Tamil counterparts, Sinhala Buddhists also hold the cow in high regard. While it might be untrue to say that Sinhala Buddhist culture venerates the cow in the same manner as some Hindu Indians and Sri Lankan Tamils do, it can nonetheless be argued that strands of Sinhala Buddhist culture have a high opinion of cattle and some Sinhala Buddhists undertake special efforts to protect them.

In this paper I will explore the role of cow protectionism in Sinhala Buddhist culture and argue that cow protectionism in Sinhala Buddhist Sri Lanka differs from Indian and Hindu–Tamil cow protectionism, though there are also a number of noticeable parallels between these cases. I will argue that although Buddhist ethics plays a significant role in the Sinhala Buddhist cow protection movement there are also deeper nationalist factors underlying it.

This argument is based largely around ethnographic fieldwork I conducted in Sri Lanka between 2011 and 2012.3 It was during this fieldwork that I observed that cow protectionism is an important feature of the animal welfare movement in Sri Lanka. This animal welfare movement is largely Buddhist and is supposed to be indiscriminate in its championing of animals. Yet, despite this, cows seem to feature heavily in the animal welfare move-ment’s rhetoric. How is this possible given that Buddhist morality dictates that all sentient beings should be treated equally? This paper will explore some answers to this question. First, however, we will examine the case of cow protectionism in India.

Cow Protectionism in Mainland IndiaIn India, cow protectionism has historically been the product of (i) a religious view that violence towards animals—in particular cows—is morally sanc-

heavily influenced by Indian cosmological principles (such as the zodiac) as well as religious practices, usually Hinduism, and this is especially evident in terms of how Sinhala Buddhists readily adopt Hindu rituals surrounding Kataragama worship.

3. The fieldwork for this research was conducted in two main areas: Colombo and Kăegalla district, Sri Lanka. The subject of the research was animal nonviolence and vegetarianism, but in the course of this research considerations concerning cows ended up becoming a matter of some importance. The research participants numbered 35 in total: 19 were laypeople and 16 were monks. The research produced a number of important findings about attitudes towards vegetarianism amongst lay and monastic Sinhala Buddhists and these results are intended to be published at a later time. The research was conducted with full approval from the Human Research Ethics subcommittee University of Tasmania.

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tionable; and (ii) the more subtle and underlying role that animal liberation politics has played in forming the modern Hindu nationalist identity. In due course I will suggest that similar forces are at play in explaining Sinhala Buddhist cow protectionism, though the particular religious and historical-cultural contexts are different.

The fact that cows are highly valued in modern India has been well studied. For example, Crooke, writing in 1912, observed that within non-Hindu religious traditions respect for the cow has rarely reached the ‘feeling of passionate devotion . . . which is found amongst the Hindus’.4 This intense cow veneration has continued into contemporary times. Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi has observed that ‘In the animal realm, the bovines enjoy the widest worship. The Hindu veneration of the cow has taken root among tribal communities and is still spreading.’5 This has resulted even in buffalo being viewed as sacred due to their similarity to cows.6 Fuller observes that animal slaughter is unpopular today and that the special protection afforded cows is sometimes extended to buffalo because of these biological similarities.7

However, it has been argued that the common perception that Brah-manism has advocated cow protectionism from its earliest beginnings is actually mistaken. D.N. Jha has observed that ‘the cow was neither sacred nor unslayable in the Vedic period’.8 Jha observes that cows were routinely sacrificed to the gods and that they were, in many cases, viewed as the most ideal sacrificial victims. These points are also supported by Ludwig Alsdorf who notes that cow slaughter was sometimes justified according to Vedic textual authorities.9 He does, however, note that instructions concerning the treatment of cows are conflicting and that there is disagreement in Vedic and post-Vedic tradition as to whether cow sacrifice is truly legitimate.10

4. W. Crooke, ‘The Veneration of the Cow in India’, Folklore 23, no. 3 (1912): 277.

5. Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi, ‘Food Avoidance of Indian Tribes’, Anthropos Bd. 70, H. 3/4 (1975): 394.

6. Buffalo and cattle are both of the bovinae subfamily and carry similar biological features—they are ungulates, have cloven hooves, horns and so on.

7. C.J. Fuller, The Camphor Flame—Popular Hinduism and Society in India (Princeton University Press, 2004), 74.

8. D.N. Jha, The Myth of the Holy Cow (London: Verso Books, 2003), 38.9. Ludwig Alsdorf, The History of Vegetarianism and Cow­Veneration in India

(London: Routledge Press, 2010), 36–37.10. For example, he writes: ‘Such a victory of the champion of the bloody

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Fuller agrees with Alsdorf’s views and, in addition, also observes that cow slaughter led to the consumption of beef and that this became a customary ritual action.11 It should not be thought, however, that cattle slaughter implies that the animal is somehow looked down upon. Indeed, as Louis Dumont observes, the opposite is often the case: the fact that the cow is sacrificed to the ancestors merely illustrates the sacredness of its meat.12 Lack of cow protection does not necessarily imply lack of veneration.

Airing the view that cow protectionism has few precedents in the earliest Indian texts has led to a public backlash against scholars such as Jha. As Matthew Sayers observes in his review of Jha’s book, Indian nationalists wasted no time in having his book banned.13 This is not a trivial point. What it shows is that cow protectionism is viewed as an essential feature of Hinduism by at least some Hindu Indians, and it is viewed as an essential feature by a particular group of Hindu Indians who are politically motivated. This already indicates the role that cow protectionism plays in some concep-tions of Hindu identity. Sandria Freitag has argued that cow protection has, historically, been a way of constructing Hindu identity in the face of non-Hindu Indians—often Muslims.14 Specific examples of this are the 1893 riots. These riots developed from nationalist groups gathering in religious centres in the North, in particular Benares, Hardwar and Nagpur. The riots that developed from these gatherings were intended to protest against Muslims who engaged in cattle slaughter. Protest against the slaughter of cows by Muslims in Sri Lanka also comes up in the case of Sinhala Buddhist cow protectionism.

Ostensibly, the cause of cow protection in India is due to the perceived

sacrifice is, however, an exception; the rule is the triumph of ahiṃsa’ (Alsdorf, Vegetarianism, 39). He also notes that the Manusmṛti is fairly inconsistent on the question of whether animal slaughter is or is not allowed (Alsdorf, Vegetarianism, 20–21).

11. Fuller, Camphor Flame, 74.12. Louis Dumont, Homo hierarchius: The Caste System and Its Implications,

trans. Mark Sainsbury, Louis Dumont and Basia Gulati (University of Chicago Press, 1966), 147.

13. Matthew Sayers, ‘The Myth of the Holy Cow’, The Journal of Asian Studies 62, no. 1 (2003): 312.

14. Sandria B. Freitag, ‘Sacred Symbols as Mobilizing Ideology: The North Indian Search for a “Hindu” Community’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 22, no. 4 (1980): 607, 610.

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sacredness of the cow. So in the first case there is a religious motivation behind the Indian cow protection movement. But underlying this religious motivation are more fundamental socio-cultural forces at play. Crooke has suggested, for example, that cow veneration originated as a consequence of certain prudential motivations: keeping a cow alive was more economically viable than killing it.15

In light of Freitag’s analysis, however, this can be considered only one part of the explanation of the origins of Indian cow protectionism. There are strong ethnic-political forces at play too. It is interesting to see how similar ethnic-political considerations underlie the motives for cow protection in Sri Lanka although the details of the motivation do differ slightly in light of the different cultural and religious context of Sinhala Buddhist Sri Lanka. One important similarity, however, is the way cow protectionism is used to construct religious identities and to separate the ‘true’ Buddhist from the non-Buddhists.

Cow Protectionism in Sri LankaAs mentioned earlier, the case of cow protectionism in Sri Lanka differs somewhat from the case of Hindu-India because the Sinhala majority mostly practice a different religion, namely Buddhism. Sinhala Buddhists also maintain different customs and traditions to many places in India.16

There is, however, a significant population of Tamil Sri Lankans who have much closer, more obvious, ties to the cultural and religious traditions of India. For many Sri Lankan Tamils cow protection and veneration is the norm. This is clear from a number of studies based in mainland India that show the extent that cow veneration is crucial in Tamil Hindu ritual and these Hindu rituals are also performed by Hindu-Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Cows, for example, are venerated during pongal. During pongal cows are decorated and offered special foods. This is considered an appropriate way to thank the animal for its work and generosity during the preceding year.17 Jones and Ryan write that on pongal ‘cows and other cattle are directly worshipped and are allowed to run free’.18 This festival is, of course,

15. Crooke, Veneration, 300.16. A significant number of Sinhalese are Christian, but their views on cows

cannot be discussed here due to space constraints.17. Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi, ‘Hindu Rites in Modern Tamil Literature’,

Anthropos Bd. 98, H. 2 (2003): 362.18. Constance A. Jones and James D. Ryan, Encylopedia of Hinduism (New

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widely celebrated amongst Hindu-Tamils in Sri Lanka. A central aspect of the pongal festivities is the celebration of food and its plentifulness. Pongal refers specifically to milk rice (Sin: kiri bat), a special food eaten by Tamils and Sinhalese alike. Milk rice reflects two fundamental sources of food in Tamil and Sinhala culture: milk and rice. By celebrating with milk rice, one is celebrating the very notion of plentiful food. This idea of plentiful-ness is reflected in the worship of the cow, which is regarded as a source of sustenance and is respected for its life-giving characteristics. This way of venerating the cow is similarly experienced in the Sinhala Buddhist context as we shall see presently.

Anthony Good also observes that, amongst Hindu Tamils, cow dung is considered a sacred artifact and its ash is an important part of certain southern Hindu rituals.19 This is consistent with Sri Lankan Hindu Tamil practices. In his study of Munnesvaram Temples in Eastern Sri Lanka, Rohan Bastin notes that cow dung is an important part of Hindu ritualism and is used, for example to mark images of deities.20 Cow products—milk, curd, ghee, dung, and urine—are regularly used as part of pūja ceremonies.21 Cow milk is especially used as a central ingredient in the preparation of milk rice though the Sinhalese use coconut milk for the same purpose.22 Moreover, Tamil Saivites, during their festivities at the Munnesvaram temple near Chilaw, utilise liberal amounts of cow’s milk in their flag hoisting ceremonies: the base of the flag-pole is doused in copious amounts of milk and coconut water. Of this, Bastin says, ‘The volumes of milk and coconut water are enormous because of the private offerings. I estimated about two hundred litres of milk and about 300 nuts . . . The most important liquid is the milk.’23 Cow products are not only highly venerated amongst Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka; so is the cow itself.

Our focus here, however, is the cow veneration prevalent amongst the

York: Checkmark Books, 2008), 330.19. Anthony Good, ‘The Structure and Meaning of Daily Worship in a South

Indian Temple’, Anthropos, Bd. 96, H. 2 (2001): 496.20. Rohan Bastin, The Domain of Constant Excess: Plural Worship at the

Munnesvaram Temples in Sri Lanka (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2002), 46, 67, 69, 196.

21. Bastin, Domain, 119.22. Bastin, Domain, 144n3.23. Bastin, Domain, 168–69.

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Sri Lankan ethnic and religious majority: Sinhala Buddhists. The fact that at least some Sinhala Buddhists favour cow protectionism is striking because the Theravāda Buddhist religion is so distinct from Hindu religious orthodoxy. It is distinct in at least one interesting way—it is a tradition that views all sentient beings as equal in terms of their moral worth. This point needs to be unpacked, however. In terms of karmic fruitfulness, giving to a Buddha is considerably more rewarding than giving to an animal. However, it still remains the case that the Pāli canon tends to insist that all sentient beings should be treated with compassion and loving kindness and that no fundamental distinctions should be made between animals in terms of our general ethical conduct.24

Traditionally, this universal ban on animal slaughter is not necessar-ily the case for Hinduism because, as we see in the case of Jha, Alsdorf and Fuller, the earliest Indian doctrines (doctrines upon which modern Hinduism are based) freely allowed the slaughter of animals—though, as Fuller has argued, this is changing in contemporary times and violence towards animals is increasingly seen as barbaric and practised only when absolutely necessary. For Buddhism the matter is less controversial: animal slaughter—and animal killing in general—is bad and it makes no distinc-tions between cows and any other animal. The fact that there is an exclusive interest in cow protection in Sinhala Buddhist communities and literature therefore requires investigation. First, I will discuss a few examples of this cow protectionism within Sinhala Buddhist activist subcultures, using relevant images from my ethnographic research, before moving on to trying to explain its prevalence.

Case 1: Animal activist literature

There are several Sinhala Buddhist animal activist writers who discuss the issue of cow protectionism. One of these is the lay Buddhist writer Shriya

24. The Pāli canon regularly insists that ‘living beings’, in general, or ‘all beings’ should not be harmed (see E.M. Hare, trans., The Book of the Gradual Sayings = (Aṅguttara Nikāya) (Oxford: Pali Text Society), 2008), 10.3.21: 23; Bhikkhu Bodhi, trans., The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000), 1.1.3: 4; Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, trans., The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (Majjhima Nikāya) (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2009), 41.8: 380, for a few examples).

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Figure 1. Give Us Space to Live, Shriyā Rathnakāra (2009)

Rathnakāra. Rathnakāra has produced a small book called Give Us Space to Live (apaṭa jīvat vĕnna iḍa dĕnna) (see fig. 1). The subject matter is animal rights and animal welfare more generally.

His general argument is that Buddhist doctrine encourages animal non-violence and this demands that a good Buddhist should become a vegetarian. He also employs non-Buddhist arguments to make his case. He argues, for example, that meat eating is harmful from a prudential health perspective. Meat eating, he says, causes cancer and also invites brain-borne diseases.25

Yet for the most part, Rathnakāra works fairly closely with Pāli Buddhist source materials to produce his vegetarian non-violence argument. In particu-lar he employs the Mettasutta as a way of encouraging people to abstain from

25. Shriyā Rathnakāra, apaṭa jīvat vĕnna iḍa dĕnna (Give Us Space to Live), baudḍa saṃskṛutika maḍyasṭhānaya (2009), 16.

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animal killing and meat eating. The Mettasutta is a popular and well-known text amongst Sinhala Buddhists and carries a lot of argumentative weight within the wider lay community when it comes to the issue of morality. If the Mettasutta can be shown to encourage non-violence and vegetarianism this would have significant behavioural impact on many people.26

For our purposes, one of the interesting things about Rathnakāra is the role that cows play in his writing. The cover of his book features a cow bowing down in front of a monk while another image shows a freshly killed calf being transported on the back of a motorcycle.27 Despite the prominence cow imagery has in Give Us Space to Live, cows are only mentioned once in the book proper:

Going from place to place and selecting cows, goats, pigs, and chickens, purchasing them and packing them into lorries and taking them to cattle sheds, they are imprisoned without food in cages, and they go on a journey of many miles knowing that at the end they will be executed.28

Why does Rathnakāra utilise cow imagery on the cover but hardly discuss it in the actual text? A plausible explanation is that, since people regard cows with great sympathy, Rathnakāra uses cow imagery as a way to make his reader more agreeable to his more general vegetarian arguments. This is the same strategy that the Organisation for the Preservation of Life uses on its billboards. This organisation will be discussed presently.

The second influential writer here is a monk called Ācārya Buddhagayāve Sisilavandha Mēthriya Hivipāṇo (hereafter Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo). Bhikkhu

26. Rathnakāra, Give Us Space, 4.27. The image of the cow bowing in front of the monk seems to be a fairly

ubiquitous image used in connection to animal welfare in Buddhist Sri Lanka. I saw it used on three occasions: (1) on the cover of Give Us Space to Live, (2) on a large billboard for the Organisation for the Preservation of Life in Dehiwela, and (3) at an āyurvedic eye clinic in Panadura which practised exclusively vegetarian medicine—an oddity in traditional āyurvedic practice (see fig. 2). I suspect that this image is commonly used within the Sinhala animal welfare movement as it connects cow protectionism to Buddhism and monasticism. Similar images appear on online social media. In particular, the monk Magalkande Sudatta Himi is often depicted with cows prostrate before him (see fig. 3). The idea of cows lying prostrate before monks is a rich image for the Sinhala animal welfare movement.

28. thăenin thăenaṭa gŏs gavayan. eluvan, ūran, kukuḷan torā berā gĕna, milaṭa gĕna, lŏrivala gāl karagĕna, kuḍuvala hirakaragĕna nirāhāra va săethăepum gaṇnāvak yana gamana keḷavara porakaya bava ovuhu daniti (Rathnakāra, Give Us Space, 14).

Figure 2. Image from āyurvedic eye clinic in Panadura (2013)

Figure 3. Social media image showing cow prostrate before monk (2013) (from a Facebook group titled indaratana himi venvĕn api)

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Hivipāṇo has produced a book called The Question of Vegetarianism.29 Like Rathnakāra’s booklet, Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo’s text maintains a pro-vegetarian, pro-animal stance.30

Unlike Give Us Space to Live, The Question of Vegetarianism is much more analytical in its approach and it is set up as a series of objections to imagined opponents of vegetarianism and animal welfarism. Hivipāṇo discusses the subject of cow protectionism in his book, but his point is to criticise the privileging of cows that is commonly practised in Sri Lanka. This is not to say that he believes that cows are not important—on the contrary. Rather, he believes that other animals are owed the same special treatment cows are in accord with Buddhist ethics. He makes his comments in context to rare animals (durlabha satva) which, he points out, are cherished more than ordinary creatures. He then comments:

29. Ācārya Buddhagayāve Sisilavandha Mēthriya Hivipāṇo, nirmānsha prashnayata: abhiyogathmaka piḷithurak (gawiṣanāthmaka kruthiyaki) (The Question of Vegetarianism: The Challenge Answered [an investigative book]), (Dehiwala: Shrīdevī Printers, 2011). Not to be confused with a book of the same title this time authored by another monk, Gñānanda Thera (2009). A central difference between the Bhikkhu Gñānanda Thera text and the Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo text is that the former is against vegetarianism while the latter is for vegetarianism.

30. In terms of the differences between Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo’s text and Rathnakāra’s text, Hivipāṇo’s is by far the more substantive.

Figure 4. The Question of Vegetarianism, Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo (2011)

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It’s the same with many Sri Lankan people who provide unlimited love towards cows. A great many of our venerable monks take special responsibility for having cows liberated from death. They do this because of unlimited love towards cows. Nevertheless it’s true that many monks prepare and consume the flesh of other animals. Here you can see that there is no love, kindness, or compassion towards other animals apart from cows.31

We can see from this passage that, according to Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo, cow veneration is a real phenomena in Buddhist Sri Lanka, though Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo does object to this exceptionalism on moral grounds.32

Although The Question of Vegetarianism adopts less flowery rhetoric than Rathnakāra’s text, Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo’s arguments do nonetheless sometimes utilise appeals to emotion and cows play a role in this rhetoric. A good example of this is in cases where Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo utilises diagrams and images to convey his point. Towards the end of the book there is a full-page image of various different animals all imploring the reader to abstain from killing and eating them (see fig. 4). The title of the image reads: ‘Oh don’t! Don’t kill and eat us!’ (ane epā! ane epā! apava marā kanna epā).33 There are various images of animals underneath the text—pigs, chickens, prawns, and even turtles and molluscs—each of which have their hands clasped in the traditional Sinhala sign of respect (vandanaya). A speech bubble illus-trates what each animal is saying. In accordance with Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo’s objections above, the cow is treated equally with other animals.

Interestingly, the cow states, ‘you feed your children from our blood which is turned into milk’ (ape le kirikaralā neda ŏbe daruvanṭa pŏvanne).34 There is a traditional Sinhala pseudo-medical notion that milk is a product of the

31. ĕsema apa shrī laṃkāveda baudḍa janatāvagĕn bŏhomayak gavayāṭa asīmitava ādaraya dakvati. apage bhikṣun vahanselā bŏhomayakda gavasin maraṇayĕn mudavā gannaṭa visheṣayĕn mulikatvayak gena kaṭayutu karati. e ovun gavayinṭa asīmitava ādaraya karana nisāya. ĕhĕt ăetăem bŏho bhikṣun vĕnat satva māṃsha hŏndākārava vaḷandati gavayin hăerĕnnaṭa an satvayinaṭa ovunge hadavat tula ādarayak maitriyak karuṇāvak nŏmăeti ova mĕyin pĕnī yayi: Hivipāṇo, Question of Vegetarianism, 31.

32. This criticism of cow protectionist exceptionalism extends beyond his fellow Buddhists to the followers of other religions. He says, ‘Likewise worshippers of the Shiva religion are the same. They show devotion only to cows’ (ěsema shiva āgama adahannanda ěsemaya. ǒvun bhakatyadaraya dakvanuye gavayāṭa pamaṇaya): Hivipāṇo, Question of Vegetarianism, 32.

33. Hivipāṇo, Question of Vegetarianism, 231.34. Hivipāṇo, Question of Vegetarianism, 231.

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blood—for example, in humans it is thought that breast milk directly origi-nates from the mother’s blood.35 The suggestion, therefore, is that there is something repulsive about drinking cow milk because it is ultimately the same thing as drinking the cow’s blood. The cow then continues by asking, ‘why do you kill us and cut away our udder [and therefore our milk supply]?’ (ăeyi apa marā apage kiri burulla kapā damanne).36 The role that milk fetishisation plays in the cow protectionist movement is very important. In particular, the Organisation for the Preservation of Life favours cows because they supply us with wholesome milk. Their position will be discussed presently. Here, however, Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo suggests that we should not drink cow milk because it is blood (or at least this is strongly implied).

As with Rathnakāra, Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo treats all animals equally in terms of their moral relevance—as mentioned, Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo views cows as being just as morally relevant as even molluscs. But some of the points raised by Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo about cows are certainly relevant for the wider issue of cow protectionism in Sri Lanka, particularly the points he raises about milk, and this will become evident in due course. We can also see in cases like Rathnakāra and Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo that there is a thriving animal activist and animal protection movement and that this movement centrally utilises cows as a tool to motivate their cause. The fact that Hivipāṇo feels the need to rein in such groups only illustrates the power that these cow protectionist groups have in the minds of many Sinhala Buddhists.

Case 2: Nihāl Nelson’s song and the Kiri Ammā cult

This focus on cow protectionism goes beyond just activist literature but is also expressed in the popular domain of music. In particular we find cases of Sinhala Buddhist celebrity figures endorsing cow protectionism as a legitimate position and, like Rathnakāra, this encouragement often emerges from a Buddhist perspective. For example, the famous baila performer Nihāl Nelson has penned a song that deals directly with cow protection. The song is called Kiri Ammā which means ‘Milk Mother’. The milk mother, in

35. Dennis McGilvray, Crucible of Conflict: Tamil and Muslim Society on the East Coast of Sri Lanka (London: Duke University Press, 2008), 113. McGilvray’s comment concerns the view of Tamil Sri Lankans, but these views on blood and milk are the same as those of Sinhala Buddhists.

36. McGilvray, Crucible of Conflict.

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Sinhala culture, refers to the grandmother on the father’s side. It also has strong matrilineal connotations more generally, and the song itself relates the idea that one should treat the cow in the same way one would treat one’s own mother or grandmother.

The song is also a reference to a Sinhalese goddess also called Kiri Ammā who is, as McGilvray explains, ‘believed capable of bringing rain and curing illness if her angry “heat” is ritually cooled.’37 It would seem that the deity Kiri Ammā is associated with the Hindu deity Kāma Dhenu, the mythic cow of endless lactation.38 Obeyesekere notes that Kiri Ammā is isomorphic with the goddess Pattini and was a deity that was ultimately displaced by Pattini.39 Nonetheless, Kiri Ammā remains an important force in Sri Lanka: ‘When I speak of Pattini displacing Kiri Ammā, I really mean that the former eroded the latter’s sphere of influence.’40

Obeyeskere still believes, however, that the Kiri Ammā cult will ‘go totally out of vogue in Sri Lanka’ though, as we shall see, there is no indication this will happen any time soon, as evidenced by the constant preoccupation with cow veneration throughout Sinhala Buddhist Sri Lanka. Indeed, there is an explicit acknowledgement of Kiri Ammā as a deity, but also as a concept embodied through the cow. The Organisation for the Preservation Life—to be discussed presently—carries a piece of advertising that prominently utilises an image of Śhiva, Parvātī, and Kāma Dhenu—the latter, of course, being a precursor deity to Kiri Ammā. This shows that Kiri Ammā and her analogues are still worshipped in some form or another and her name is explicitly used as part of anti-cow slaughter campaigns. Her importance is illustrated by her prominence in popular music, such as the lyrics of Nihāl Nelson’s song, also called Kiri Ammā:

[chorus]She gave her milk from her bodyPerfect people grew from her power

37. Dennis B. McGilvray, ‘Sex, Repression, and Sanskritization in Sri Lanka?’, Ethos 16, no. 2 (1987): 101.

38. McGilvray, ‘Sex, Repression’, 101–2.39. Gananath Obeyesekere, The Cult of the Goddess Pattini (University of

Chicago Press, 1984), 293–94. Note that Rohan Bastin’s research shows that Sri Lankan Tamils Saivites also worship Kiri Ammā, under the name Ambal, which means literally ‘the mother’: Bastin, Domain, 23.

40. Obeyesekere, Goddess Pattini, 294.

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The good that has been done is not known by ignorant peopleDon’t eat the meat of the milk mother.

[verse 1]Even the innocent cow has life.Why do you want to kill an animal aimlessly?Look and think a little bit—she eats clean grassBut you have been born a human yet you eat rotten fleshIf a person eats cow meat for 35 yearsMultiply 35 by 365, the amount is 12,775.Do you realise the sin you have committed without looking into the future?

[chorus repeats]

[verse 2]Some [people] sell the cow because they are greedy for moneyAfter that the innocent animal’s destiny is resolvedBy getting the flesh with that same money he eats happilyThe fact that it was the meat of the cow you sold, he doesn’t knowGee, buffalo curd, milk, the five products of the cow—these are earnedBy using the [cow’s] manure great vegetable garden’s flourishPeople that do not eat meat from animals have a contented heartIn that way the gods live in pure hearts.

[chorus repeats]41

The song begins by highlighting the role that the cow plays in nurturing young children by supplying them with milk essential for their develop-ment. Unfortunately, the cow is repaid with unkindness for its generosity. As Rathnakāra would have it, the cow is shipped off in lorries to be slaugh-tered. Nelson observes, however, that this treatment is highly un-Buddhist and in an amusing wordplay he suggests that the consumption of cow flesh constitutes a sin that will ultimately lead to considerable suffering for the

41. [chorus] kiri dunnĕ daruvanṭayi sirurĕn ăege / piripun minisun văeḍunĕ balayĕni ăege / e kaḷa guṇa nodanna his minisun vāge / epā epā mas kannaṭa kiri ammāge //ahiṃsaka tirisan gavayāṭat paṇayi tiyenne / evan satĕku aho akālaye kimada maranne / ṭikak hitala balanu ū pirisindu tanakŏla kanne / namut minisat bava lăebu ŏba ăeyi malakuṇu kanne / kĕnĕk tispas vasarak kăevŏt gavamas uyalā / gaṇana dŏḷos dahas hatsiya hăettăe pahak vĕlā / ŏbaṭa therăenāda ŏba kala pav dura diga nŏbalā [chorus] // mudal tanhāvĕn samaharu gavayā vikuṇanne / ahiṃsaka satakugĕ iraṇama inpasu visadĕnne / yalit e mudalin mas genavit rasakara kanne / taman vikuṇū gavayagĕ mas bava ohu nae danne / gitĕl mī kiri eḷakiri pasgorasa sapayanne / ivatalana pŏhŏrin maha eḷavalu koṭu saruvanne / mevan satakugĕ mas nŏkana ayaṭa sĕta săelasĕnne / evan pirisindu hadavat tuḷa dĕviyan văeḍa inne [chorus, end of song].

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meat eater in the future. In the last verse vegetarianism is endorsed and it is said that those who abstain from meat will lead a ‘contented life’. In this fashion, we discover that the song not only endorses abstinence from cow slaughter it encourages vegetarianism more generally. This move from cow non-violence to total vegetarianism is a trope in Sinhala Buddhist animal welfarism. This is apparent in the case of Rathnakāra above, but it is also apparent in the case of the cow protection society to be discussed soon.

Another important characteristic of Nelson’s lyrics, as intimated earlier, is the implications attached to the use of the term Kiri Ammā. There is an analogical argument at stake here: Nelson is endorsing the idea that if you respect your mother and grandmother for the way in which they raised you as a child you ought to also similarly respect the cow. After all, the cow also nurtured and supported you. This argument resonates strongly in Sri Lanka where the principle that one must respect one’s mother and grandmother is totally inviolable. There is also a clear connection here to harm occasioned by the Kiri Ammā goddess. Harming cows therefore becomes not just an affront to one’s own mother and grandmother, it is a violation of the sacred domain of the goddess Kiri Ammā.

These analogical arguments are not restricted just to cows, however. Rathnakāra draws upon these ideas in Give Us Space to Live where he speaks favourably of a hen who cares for her hatchlings. As with Nelson, Rathnakāra wants to create a parallel between the human mother and the animal mother.42 This analogical argument is a favourite device to deliver the cow protectionist message in Sri Lanka.43 It is important to note that this argument is also popular in Hindu India and the argument probably finds its origins in Hindu Indian cow protectionism and was only later co-opted by Sinhala Buddhist protectionists.44

42. Rathnakāra, Give Us Space, 37.43. In his ethnographic research of rural Sri Lanka, Richard Gombrich also

observed this same analogical argument being used by his informants: Richard Gombrich, Buddhist Precept and Practice: Traditional Buddhism in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991), 306. Gombrich also mentions the argument that cows give us milk and therefore should not be harmed (305).

44. This analogical argument appears in several Indian anthropology studies. Freitag discusses the case of a Hindu leader named Karria Misr who, in 1888, argued that people should ‘only milk “the cow” after its calf had been satisfied and told them that the cow was a “universal mother” since every man drank cow’s

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Case 3: The Organisation for the Preservation of LifeWe have seen cases of where cow protectionism appears in literature and popular culture. This list is not intended to be definitive but helps provide a survey of some examples of where cow protectionist discourses appear in Sinhala Buddhist culture. Another example of cow protectionism in Sri Lanka comes in the form of a grassroots political movement.

During the course of my fieldwork I encountered an animal welfare organ-isation based in Colombo called the Organisation for the Preservation of Life (for the sake of brevity I will hereafter refer to this as the Organisation).45 This organisation has historical precedents. One of my key lay informants—an upāsaka (a pious layperson) who is deeply invested in vegetarianism and animal welfarism—recalled that there was a powerful cow protection movement in the ’80s and that this cow protection movement encouraged people to give up eating beef. The upāsaka argues that people overempha-sise the importance of cows, however, and in this way he enlists the very same complaint made by Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo. He says:

It was [at one time] advised that eating cows was bad and therefore a lot of Buddhists stopped eating cows. But is it only a cow that has life? Sometimes if you kill one cow a hundred people could eat it, but if you kill a chicken only two or three people can eat it. So you have to kill a lot of chickens to get the same amount of meat as killing a cow. So if you look at small animals (pŏdi satiyak) [like that] every animal likes its life.46

The monk who runs the Organisation similarly recalls this movement but suggests that its significance ultimately petered out for a time due to a lack of clerical and lay support. He concludes that even during that time the ‘harming of animals and cows’ was still there, and this is why the Organisa-tion is still needed as the job has not been completed.47

milk’ (Freitag, ‘Sacred Symbols’, 609). As Jha notes, Mohandas Gandhi was also in favour of such arguments and even said that the cow is better than one’s own mother (Jha, Myth of the Holy Cow, 17).

45. See note 3, above, for more details on my ethnographic research in Sri Lanka. Note that the interview data supplied here was largely incidental to my main research, which was mainly concerned with vegetarianism.

46. This and the following comments are the product of interviews conducted during the fieldwork described above (see note 3).

47. As mentioned above, these anti-cow arguments were also reported in Gombrich’s research (see note 43). Since his work was conducted in the 1970s it can be concluded that this type of research has a historical precedent in Sri Lanka.

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One of the interesting features of this organisation is the content of the media campaign that they implement. It is a multifaceted campaign that utilises both billboard advertising and newspaper advertising. The billboard campaign is located at two high profile sites. The first billboard is set up at Dehiwala junction which is an important thoroughfare in Colombo and therefore is highly visible to a large number of commuters. The second billboard is situated in the suburb of Wellawatte along Galle road. This location in particular is exposed to a lot of foot and motor traffic as Galle road is a major arterial road in Colombo.

In all cases, the analogical argument against cow slaughter is employed. A key slogan is ‘Don’t eat the milk mother’s flesh’, and the Dehiwala billboard also says ‘Let’s protect the cow as we would our mothers’ (see fig. 5).48 This analogical argument has already been discussed in the case of Nihal Nelson. This line of argument is underscored by the fact that the Buddha’s Sri Sambuddha anniversary had recently passed and it is especially important to cultivate greater piety and moral rectitude at such religiously signifi-cant times.49 According to the Organisation for the Preservation of Life this

48. ĕpā ĕpā mas kannaṭa kiri ammāge . . . 2600 srī sambudṭhatva jayantiya samaramu. gavamas kaemĕn valakimu. saṃviṭhānaye panivuḍayaki [address] [telephone number]. [picture inset]: gava sampatha rakimu ape mava vage. Note: The last sentence was also in Tamil.

49. The Sri Sambuddha anniversary is an annual celebration intended to

Figure 5. Organisation for the Preservation of Life, Dehiwala billboard (2012)

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should involve abstention from cow flesh and, presumably, the boycotting of butcheries that slaughter cows.

The Wellawatta billboard continues this Buddhist line of argument by observing how we have been, ‘given this beautiful mother nature’, and so, having looked upon the face of the innocent cow, ‘How can we [then] consume its tasty flesh?’ (see fig. 6).50 The billboard further illustrates how abstention from beef eating is considered a Buddhist duty by showing a Buddhist monk bending over to pet a small calf. Like Rathnakāra, the image of the cow is an important device for conveying the Organisation’s animal welfare message.

The Organisation’s newspaper campaign follows a roughly similar format.51 It opens with the demand: ‘Let us stop the murder of cows in Sri

commemorate the 2600th year of Buddhism. It is a celebration of Vesak, the Buddha’s day of enlightenment.

50. sŏbā dahama ŏbaṭa dunnu. me suratal duhuṇa balala. minisun vana api kŏhŏmada. me osvala rasa balannĕ. gava mas kaemĕn valakimu.

51. An interesting point is that the newspaper campaign provides a different name for the organisation. Here it is called The Cow Prosperity and Protection Organisation (gava sampata surukīme saṃvidhānaya—the newspaper translates this only as Cow Protection Organization). The change in the name of the organisation may indicate that the organisation originally was concerned only with cow protection but widened its aims by taking on the new name Organisation for the Preservation of Life—a group tasked with protecting all animals.

Figure 6. Organisation for the Preservation of Life, Wellawatta billboard (2012)

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Figure 7. Organisation for the Preservation of Life, newspaper article (2012)

Lanka.’ It then asks, ‘Why do we suggest that cattle be protected?’ The answer is interesting in that most of the reasons supplied are concerned with the fact that because of cows ‘your children get to have a fresh glass of milk in the morning’ and ‘you can see your children grow healthier and stronger by consuming this milk’ (fig. 7).52 These remarks are implicitly related to the Kiri Ammā cult. As McGilvray and Obeyeskere note, Kiri Ammā was traditionally regarded as a deity that healed the sick through the dispensing

52. Obaṭa raṭe daruvanṭa udeṭa naĕvum eḷakiri ṭikak bŏnnaṭa laĕbanavānam. Naĕvum kiri bimĕn obe raṭe daruvan nirogi vĕnavā obaṭama dakinnaṭa.

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of her milk.53 This is another example of where the practical importance of cows intersects with their magico-religious connotations: consuming cow’s milk has health benefits, but it also has magical curative properties.

This also suggests that less nourishing animals are less morally relevant, something that, in principle, goes against the general Buddhist idea of non-violence which does not discriminate about which animals should be protected. According to that general doctrine all animals should be protected. Another interesting feature of this newspaper campaign is that it repeatedly refers to the country as a whole, ‘throughout the country’ (raṭatuḷa). This rhetoric appeals directly to Sinhala Buddhist nationalist sensibilities, partic-ularly in light of the Buddhist context in which the article finds itself. In this way, cow protection is being viewed as an obligation falling upon all who take their identity as Sinhala Buddhists seriously.

Case 4: The halāl abolitionism movement

Another example of cow protectionism is the halāl abolitionism movement that has developed in Sri Lanka in recent years. The movement is extremely active in its political activities and has made international news for targeting Muslim businesses.54 In this respect, the movement is heavily affiliated with anti-Muslim and xenophobic elements of Sinhala society. The abolitionist movement relies mainly on lay support, but an integral part of this movement is the political group Bŏdu Bala Sĕnā (Buddhist Strength Force), which is a Buddhist activist group run by monks. Its aim is to ‘save’ Sri Lanka from non-Buddhist (non-Sinhala) interlopers, who are viewed as threatening the integrity of Buddhist Sri Lanka. Hence, they are deeply concerned with anti-halāl activities.55

53. Obeysekere, Goddess Pattini, 294; McGilvary, ‘Sex, Repression’, 101. For Obeyesekere this is also another reason why Kiri Ammā is similar to Pattini—both are female deities that cure ill children.

54. See, for example, Charles Haviland, ‘The Hardline Buddhists Targeting Sri Lanka’s Muslims’, BBC Online, 25 March 2013: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world -asia-21840600.

55. This is clear from the group’s mission statement. Their list of objectives include ‘A Buddhist society . . . The protection and building of Buddhist businesses and entrepreneurships [and] to step up, protect and face the challenges against Buddhism’ (see http://bodubalasena.org/sinhala/). With these goals in mind it clarifies why Bŏdu Bala Sĕnā is associated with the halāl abolitionist movement as they view it as a way to protect Buddhism from external threats, in this case

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This concern over halāl is in part illustrated by Vishvakīrti Deshamānya Sisirachandu: ‘In the way that we have heard, according to the Muslim teaching doesn’t it say that the animal’s neck is to be cut and die a bloody death having climbed upon a red hot iron [i.e. knife]. The way we think is that the animal is almost certainly innocent and the encouragement of such activities should not be given.’56 Like Rathnakāra’s, Vīrakŏḍi’s book contains numerous images of cows in distress (10 of the 26 images are of cows). In accord with his concern over halāl, all the images of dead cows depict them beheaded or with their throats cut.

A significant amount of social data is also available on the Internet that shows the extent and nature of these halāl abolitionist groups. Online social media has played an important role in energising the halāl abolitionist movement by targeting Muslim halāl practices. The groups that produce and disseminate this material are transparently anti-Muslim. Much of this propa-ganda revolves around cow protectionist imagery.

This is most explicit in cases where the milk mother argument is deployed. One piece produced by a Facebook halāl abolitionist group attacks a large Sri Lankan milk producer with the brand name Lucky. The text of the attack ad reads, ‘There’s no such thing as halāl cows’ (halāl vī năeti jātiye kiri mava). That is the idiomatic translation, but as one can see from the Sinhala text the word used for cows is ‘milk mothers’ (kiri mava). This use of the milk mother discourse is consistent with other parts of the animal welfare movement, as described previously.

The piece asks consumers to boycott Lucky products in order to take a stand against the fact that the company holds halāl certification and therefore supports halāl practices. A similar boycott has been called by a similar Facebook group called Safe Buddhism. In this case the group targets the company Siddhālepa, again on the basis that the company is halāl certified and therefore supports halāl practices. This attack ad shows Siddhālepa represent-atives accepting a halāl authentication certificate from Muslim officials. The

Islamic custom.56. Muslim dahamaṭa anuvada apa asā ăeti ākārayaṭasatunge bĕlla kaĕpīmaṭa

kiyā aĕtteda itā rat paĕhaĕgaĕnvū rat vū yakaḍayak uḍa naĕnga bavaya. Apa sitana ākārayaṭa eyada sattvayan kĕrĕhi ektarā ahinsāvak kriyāvaṭa naĕnvīmaṭa anubala dīmaki: Vishvakīrti Deshamānya Sisirachandu Vīrakŏḍi, From Non-Violence to Kindness, from Kindness to Seeing Maitriya Buddha (avihinsāvĕn maitriyaṭa maitriyĕn maître budun dăekmaṭa) (Dehiwala: Shrīdevī Printers, 2012), 4.

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text underneath simply reads, ‘Don’t buy Siddhālepa halāl’ (halāl siddhālepa ganna ĕpā), which is simply to say ‘don’t buy Siddhālepa products as such’.

These anti-halāl activities come to a head with an article run by the newspaper Lankadīpa. The article is promoted by a group called Sinha Handa (see fig. 8). The newspaper article’s title is ‘Halāl: it’s certifiable that our country doesn’t need it’ (halāl sahatikaya apa raṭaṭa anavashyayi) which facetiously plays on the idea of halāl certification. The Sinha Handa piece encourages people to study the article and its objections to halāl by writing, ‘Read about the dangers done by Muslim-kind in the name of halāl’ (halāl nāmayĕn musaluvan jātiyaṭa karana anatura găena kiyavanna). It is instruct ive to observe that these halāl abolitionist groups ostensibly are

Figure 8. Social media image arguing against halāl practices through newspaper article (from Facebook group siṃhala hanḍa)

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concerned with animal welfare and cow protectionism, but sometimes they are simply vehicles to attack Muslim minorities.

However, there are more circumspect anti-halāl pieces. A group by the name of Bokka (English: ‘guts’ or ‘gutsy’) has a propaganda piece—also run online—with the title, ‘the truth about halāl’ (halāl găena satya matayak). The piece goes on to say:

Our Muslim brothers and sisters talk about the fact that you eat a quantity of halāl food . . . say that we accept this fact . . . but! . . . if it were necessary to give blood to Muslim people would they receive halāl blood?57

The argument here seems to be that, although the anti-abolitionist accepts the Muslim counter-argument that Sinhala Buddhists eat halāl foods all the time, they ask whether Muslims would be able to have halāl blood trans fusions.

This is because, according to Islamic custom, blood is considered harām or ‘harmful’ and therefore cannot be consumed by humans.58 This is why halāl practices are needed in the first place: so that animals are pure of any blood products before they are consumed.

There is a constant stream of such propaganda on various Internet websites, and especially Facebook. This shows that the halāl abolitionist movement, which is essentially a species of the cow protectionist movement, has a strong and energised following online. These groups are often affili-ated with real political organisations such as Bŏdu Bala Sĕnā. In general, the key difference between halāl abolitionist groups in particular and cow protectionism in general is that the former is usually concerned mainly with vilifying Muslims while the latter is a merely a vehicle for that end. This vilification has led to outright violence and civil unrest. For example, trucks used to carry animal parts from a Dematagoda abattoir were attacked in July. Similarly, Hindu temples have been targeted because of animal sacrifice—for example, the Munneswaram Kali temple has been protested against by Sinhala animal welfare activists because it has accepted blood sacrifice.59

It is noteworthy that there are multiple ways that cow protectionism can

57. ape muslim sahodarayo halāl āhāra pamaṇak taman vaḷadana bava kiyanavā . . . hari eka api piligam . . . namut . . . muslim ayĕkuṭa le denna avashya vuva hŏt denu labanne halāl le pamaṇakda?

58. Andrew Rippin, Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London: Routledge, 2011), 30.

59. Bastin, Domain, 32, 66.

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manifest itself—either in a defensive capacity, as described in the case of the literature and images discussed above; or in an attack capacity, as in the case of the online social media phenomenon.

Explanations for Cow ProtectionismFrom this brief analysis of some cases of cow protectionism, it would seem that cows play a significant role in the animal welfare movement in Sinhala Buddhist Sri Lanka. It is possible that the significance of the cow could be played down. For example, even though cows play an important role in their campaigns, the monk who ran the Organisation was very explicit that his organisation was concerned with general animal welfare. Similarly, neither Rathnakāra’s nor Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo’s books are explicitly about cows.

Yet the fact that cows feature so heavily in the Organisation’s campaigns illustrates the extent to which cow protectionism resonates with Sinhala Buddhist animal welfarists. The fact that Rathnakāra was so quick to advertise his book with cow imagery speaks to the same point. Vīrakŏḍi is quite explicit in his vilification of cow slaughter by Muslims and uses cow imagery liberally throughout his book. In a different vein, Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo’s concern that animal welfare is obviated by cow protectionism similarly leads one to conclude that cow protectionism is a priority for many. We may also ask why Nelson penned a song about cows and not some other more commonly eaten animal, like the chicken. Finally, the fact that social media has exploded with cow protectionist propaganda also shows how significant cows are in Sinhala Buddhist animal welfarism. This all points towards the fact that cows are favoured in a way other animals are not and needs explanation.

Perhaps one explanation is textual. It might be the case that the canonical source materials endorse the special treatment of cows and that this is why Buddhists tend to treat cows exceptionally. As mentioned earlier, on the face of it, this seems unlikely as the Pāli source materials, materials upon which much of Sinhala Buddhism is based, generally encourage non-violence and compassion towards all sentient beings, which seems to run counter to this cow exceptionalism. This point can be contested however. Indeed, the Pāli sources do discuss the evils associated with cow slaughter. In the Suttanipāta, the Buddha is reported to have condemned the ritual slaughter of cows by royalty. He says:

Not by their feet, nor by their horns, nor by anything else had the cows harmed

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[anyone]. They were like sheep, meek, giving pails of milk. [Nevertheless] the king, seizing them by the horns, had them killed with a knife.60

However, these special passages concerning cow protection are extremely rare in the canon and are entirely swamped by repeated assertions that all sentient beings everywhere should be treated with loving-kindness and non-violence. The passage is an exception to the rule rather than a rule and it should not be taken as a general observation that cow slaughter is in particu­lar wrong. In fact it would be best taken as an attack on the ritual slaughter of animals—at the time, cows just happened to be a common subject for slaughter (again, this is a point that Alsdorf, Jha, and Dumont make, above).

In keeping with this doctrinal vein, Peter Harvey has pointed out that in some Theravāda countries larger animals are given primacy over smaller animals, such as fish.61 The explanation for this view is that smaller animals are less morally relevant because they are less sentient. Consequently it can be hypothesised that cows are more important because they are one of the largest animals in the country. This might also partly explain why elephants are given similar special treatment by Sinhala Buddhists. Although ingenious, this justification seems decidedly ad hoc and seems to be based around the fact that fish are plentiful in Sri Lanka.

These explanations are therefore not completely satisfying as it still remains the case that, doctrinally, all animals are equally morally signifi-cant. After all, the Pāli texts sometimes argue that even insects should not be killed,62 and many of my lay informants accepted that lesser animals should not be killed: one informant mentioned how worms feel just as strongly as cows or human beings; another discussed the case of a snake that was run over by a motorist—his son was said to have subsequently been reborn with a deformity as punishment (he had what was described as a tyre-mark-like birth defect across his chest).

60. See Bhikkhu Bodhi, Connected Discourses, 306: 36. Notice, in this Pāli passage, the role that milk plays in the argument—the fact that the cow gives us something is a feature of this style of argument. It links back to the arguments advanced by Bhikkhu Hivipāṇo.

61. Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations, Values and Issues (Cambridge University Press, 2000), 161.

62. For example, the Aṇguttara nikāya insists that a good Buddhist should always think, ‘Let me not cause the destruction of tiny creatures wandering astray’ (Hare, Gradual Sayings, 10.2.21: 23).

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Using cows in animal welfare literature preys upon the preconceived importance of the cow. This helps explain why Rathnakāra uses the cow as his initial example of animals that should not be killed. A similar claim can be made in the case of the Organisation. Most Sinhala Buddhists already accept that cows are special: they supply their children with milk. It is widely thought that milk is a fundamental part of a young child’s diet and it is typically supplied at schools to small children free of charge. This is pointed to by the Organisation’s newspaper campaign. Note, however, that in the case of Bhikkhu Hivipāṅo this assertion is turned on its head—milk is bad because it is ostensibly a blood product. This line of reasoning is unusual and we can now see that the health virtues of milk, rather than its apparent vices, are typically used as an argument for cow protection.

This dovetails with the important cultural influence Indian customs and beliefs have on Sinhala Buddhist Sri Lanka. Kiri Ammā is clearly an important force in Sinhala Buddhist cow veneration and she is affiliated with deities such as Pattini and Kāma Dhenu. The worship of Kiri Ammā, directly or indirectly, shows that special attention to the cow amongst Sinhala Buddhists is in part due to the influence of Hindu religious practices.

This helps explain why cows are so respected amongst Sinhala Buddhists. But this is also aggravated by complex ethnic-political factors. Gombrich and Jha have both observed that vegetarian protests sometimes centre on and target Muslim butcheries and this indicates how ethnic and political factors contribute towards the vegetarian movement.63 Of course, sometimes animal slaughter is used as a pretext for these sorts of protests, but often there are

63. Jha writes: ‘In Sri Lanka beef occupies a low position in the hierarchy of meat types but this has been attributed to the “entrepreneurial antagonisms” between the Muslims who control the meat business and the aggressive Buddhist mercantile and professional class belonging to the caste of fishermen’ (Jha, Myth of the Holy Cow, 71). Jha cites Frederick Simoons to make his point; while Simoons does mention that Sinhala Buddhists object to cattle slaughter he does not mention that this is related to any conflict with Muslim Sri Lankans (Frederick J. Simoons, Eat Not This Flesh: Food Avoidances from Prehistory to the Present [University of Wisconsin Press, 1994], 115). Jha seems to have conflated Simoons’ comment about Sikh–Muslim antagonisms on mainland India with the Sinhala Buddhist case, which is mentioned immediately after that. Jha is probably right, however, and this is confirmed by Gombrich’s observation that boycotts are often organised against butcheries—butcheries are almost always run by Muslim Sri Lankans (Gombrich, Buddhist Precept, 304).

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more basic nationalist or economic motives operating in the background, as was evidently the case with the 1915 riots.64 These observations open up the possibility that cow protectionism within the Sinhala Buddhist community is motivated in part by political and ethnic factors. This was especially clear in the social media materials discussed earlier. There we found very clear attacks on Muslims on the basis that Muslims utilise cow products. Indeed, there is a clear precedent for beef eating being used pejoratively in an ethnic context. Robert Young, for example, has discussed a medieval Sinhala text that describes how Sinhala observers viewed Portuguese sailors as deviant because they consumed beef and drank wine:

There is in our harbour in Colombo a race of people of fair skin and comely withal. They done jackets of iron and hats of iron; they rest not a minute in one place; they walk here and there; they eat hunks of stone and drink blood; they give two or three pieces of gold and silver for one fish or one lime; the report of their canon is louder than thunder when it bursts upon the rock Yugandhara. Their cannon balls fly many a gawwa and shatter fortresses of granite.65

Young points out that ‘stone’ is a synonym for meat in ‘archaic Sinhala’. Hence the alarm that these early Sinhala peoples exhibit is partly due to the fact that the Portuguese are consuming meat.

Similarly, Robert Knox, who was a prisoner of the king of Kandy in the late 1600s, observed that many Kandyans were disdainful of captive Europeans, whom they referred to pejoratively as ‘beef eating slaves’.66 This indicates how food and diet plays into ethnic identities. Europeans, in these cases, are considered deviant in part because they eat food that is considered sinful. Deviancy and food practices therefore dovetail.

This is still apparent today. In the course of our interviews it was evident that this pejorative dietary label was applied to non-Sinhala people, and in particular Muslims. The monk from the Organisation states:

So other religions—Christians, Muslims, Hindus—[though there are] very

64. The 1915 riots stemmed from a number of factors but Kumari Jayawardena has persuasively argued that economic hardship amongst poor and middle-class Sinhalese was a critical factor (Kumari Jayawardene, ‘Economic Factors in the 1915 Riots’, The Journal of Asian Studies 29, no. 2 [1970]: 227–30.

65. Gunasekere, cited in Richard Fox Young, ‘The Carpenter-Prēta’, Asian Folklore Studies 54, no. 1 (1995): 54.

66. Robert Knox, An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon, in the East Indies (Gloucester: Dodo Press, 1958), xvii.

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devoted Hindus [i.e. Hindus who protect cows] . . . [for example], with Muslims . . . they don’t really think about animals, they don’t think about compassion or pity, they don’t think about people.

In From Non-Violence to Kindness the attitude some Sinhala Buddhists have to the consumption of cow flesh by non-Buddhists is highlighted, ‘for the Hindu people the cow is a god’s mode of transportation. To them, cow flesh is very abhorrent. To us human flesh is like that. Nevertheless, to Muslim people and to Christians [cow flesh] is their main feast.’67 It is noteworthy how different ethnicities are delineated by their dietary preferences. Another monk in Kandy—speaking in the context of the virtues of vegetarianism—recalls:

One experience I have had is that even when you raise a dog without meat or fish, even after a week of not bathing it doesn’t smell. A dog who does eat meat and fish, if it is not bathed for a couple of days it will smell. Among people, those who eat meat . . . Muslims . . .

The monk did not finish his thought (maybe he thought better of it) but a layperson who was accompanying us completed the implicit conclusion: ‘Yeah, Muslims smell,’ he said. This anti-Muslim sentiment is especially apparent in the case of the halāl abolitionist movement and the correspond-ing support this movement attracts through online social media.

ConclusionLet us consider these points in light of our initial discussion about Hindu India. The first similarity between cow protectionism in India and cow protectionism in Sri Lanka is that, in both cases, what seems at first to be a movement organised around religious sentiment turns out to be contrary to textual orthodoxy. This segues into the second similarity, namely, that cow protectionism in India and Sri Lanka is heavily tied up with ethnic politics.

The key motive behind cow protectionism in the Sinhala animal welfare movement is rather more concerned with establishing a Buddhist identity that is constitutive of non-violence and animal protectionism. This is conveniently represented through the symbol of the cow—a creature which is passive, nurturing, harmless, and so on. This can be compared with the way in which cow protectionism is produced in Hindu India. As Freitag

67. Hindu āgamkayanṭa harakā dĕviyange vāhanayayi. Harak mas athishaya piḷikulya. Apaṭa minī mas mĕnya. Ehĕth harak mas muslimvarunṭa, kristiyāninṭa agra bhojanayaki: Vīrakŏḍi, From Non-Violence to Kindness, 75.

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notes, cow protectionism was an essential part of early modern India and the production of Hindu identity. In the same way, cow protectionism in Sri Lanka has been co-opted for politico-ethnic ends. This is especially clear in the case of the online social media evidence.

In contrast to the Indian case, however, rather than cow protectionism being used as a way to construct a Hindu identity, it is instead used as a way to construct a Sinhala Buddhist identity. The animal welfare movement therefore feeds into the rich nexus of Sinhala nationalism that powers much of Sri Lankan politics. In the case of both mainland India and Sri Lanka, this political impetus is a mechanism by which the individual Buddhist can be made sense of in contrast to the other—in this case, the Muslim and the European. This process of ‘othering’, which is developed through the use of deviant food practices, also helps establish the possibility that Buddhism is indeed a non-violent religion that allows animals to flourish. The use of the cow is merely convenient for this end.