Attos' Magazine

Volume #116, April / 2010

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Immanuel Velikovsky

Worlds In Collision

By Immanuel Velikovsky

The Sacred Cow

The comet Venus, of which it is said that “horns grew out of her head,” or Astarte of the horns, Venus cornuta, looked like the head of a horned animal; and since it moved the earth out of its place, like a bull with its horns, the planet Venus was pictured as a bull.

The worship of a bullock was introduced by Aaron at the foot of. Mount Sinai. The cult of Apis originated in Egypt in the days of the Hyksos, after the end of the Middle Kingdom, shortly after the Exodus. Apis, or the sacred bull, was very much venerated in Egypt; when a sacred bull died, its body was mummifled and placed in a sarcophagus with royal honors, and memorial services were held.

“All the coffins and everything excellent and profitable for this august god (the bull Apis)” were prepared by the Pharaoh, when “this god was conducted in peace to the necropolis, to let him assume his place in his temple.”

The worship of a cow or buil was widespread in Minoan Crete and in Mycenaean Greece, for golden images of this animal with large horns were found in excavations.

Isis, the planet Venus, was represented as a human figure with two horns, like Astarte (Ishtar) of the horns; and sometimes it was fashioned in the likeness of a cow. In time, Ishtar changed from male to female, and in many places worship of the bull changed to worship of the cow. The main reason for this seems to have been the fail of manna which turned the rivers into streams of honey and milk. A horned planet that produced milk most closely resembled a cow. In the Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, in which the ambrosia that falls from the sky is glorified, the god is exalted as the “great cow” which “drips with streams of milk” and as “a bull” that “hurlest thy fire upon earth and heaven.” A passage of the Ramayana about the “celestial cow” says: “Honey she gave, and roasted grain . . . and curled milk, and soup in lakes with sugared milk,” which is the Hindu version of “rivers of milk and honey.”

The “celestial cow” or “the heavenly Surabhi” (“the fragrant”) was the daughter of the Creator: she “sprung from his mouth”; at the same time nectar and “excellent perfume” were spread, according to the Indian epic. This description of the birth of the daughter from the mouth of the Creator is a Hindu parallel of Athene springing from the head of Zeus. Fragrance and nectar are mentioned in connection with the birth of the celestial cow, a combination that can be understood if we recall what we learned in the Sections “Ambrosia” and “Birth of the Planet Venus.”

Down to the present day, the Brahmans worship the cow. Cows are regarded as daughters of the “heavenly cow.” In India, as in other places, the worship of cows began in some period of recorded history. “We find in early Hindu literature sufficient information to establish the thesis that cows were once victimised at sacrifices and used at times as articles of food.” Then came the change. Cows became sacred animals, and ever since the religious law has forbidden the use of their meat for food. The Atharva-Veda repeatedly deprecates cow-killing as “the most heinous of crimes.” “All that kill, eat or permit the slaughter of cows rot in hell for as many years as there are hairs on the body of the cow slain.” Capital punishment was prescribed for those who either stole, hurt, or killed a cow. “Whoever hurts or causes another to hurt, or steals or causes another to steal, a cow, should be slain.” Even cows’ urine and dung are sacred to the Brahmans. “All its excreta are hallowed. Not a particle ought to be thrown away as impure. On the contrary, the water it ejects ought to be preserved as the best of holy waters. . . . Any spot which a cow has condescended to honour with the sacred deposit of her excrernent is forever afterwards consecrated ground.” Sprinkled on a sinner, it “converts him into a saint.”

The bull is sacred to Shiva, “the god of destruction in the Hindu Trinity.” “The consecration of the bulls and letting them lose as privileged beings to roam at their will and draw respect from all people is to be noted with particular interest. . . . The freedom and privileges of the Brahman bull are inviolate.” Even when it is destructive, the bull must not be restrained.

These quotations show the Apis cult preserved until our times. The “celestial cow” that gored the earth with its horns and turned rivers and lakes into honey and milk is still revered in the common cow and bull by hundreds of millions of the people of India.

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