Author: Jason Straziuso
Publication: Associated Press
Date: June 8, 2003
Down an unmarked dirt road in a
hilly corner of eastern Pennsylvania, Sankar Sastri calls out to his nine
cows who, after a moment, charge around an old stone fence and romp around
Sastri like children at play.
"They're all happy today," the former
engineering technology professor says.
They have good reason to be. The
cows live on Sastri's Lakshmi Cow Sanctuary, one of a scattered web of
safe havens across the country protecting the animals from slaughter. Cows
are considered holy by Hindus and adored by some animal lovers.
On a recent soggy afternoon, standing
beside his century-old barn while wearing a mud-caked New York Yankees
cap, Sastri moved among the cows, calling them by name.
"This is Sita. She's very loving.
Look at the beautiful blue eyes," said Sastri, who moved to New York from
India in 1964. "We say the cow is like a second mother to us. You wouldn't
send your mother to slaughter, would you?"
In India, cows are a religious and
practical cornerstone of life. Milk is used for nourishment, dung for fuel
and cow urine for medicinal purposes. And to Hindus, cows are to be protected
not eaten.
Sastri's quiet, 42-acre sanctuary,
also home to a tailless cat and a blind and deaf dog, became a solution
to a legal battle in Angelica, N.Y., 250 miles northwest of Bangor.
Stephen Voith, his wife, Linda,
and the family's two children are followers of a form of Krishna Consciousness,
whose followers protect cows.
A court this week told the family
it cannot keep cows on its village property because of zoning rules. The
Voiths, their four cows included, are soon moving to Sastri's sanctuary.
Voith believes the court decision
amounts to religious persecution. He said the family was not popular in
the small farming community. In his front yard was a sign that read "Krishna
Bhaktivedanta Sustain-a-bull and Wholly Cow Protection Society."
For Indians and followers of Hinduism,
cows have a historical and cultural sanctity not easily understood in the
West, said George Weckman, a professor who teaches a course in Hinduism
at Ohio University.
Cows are holy in ancient religious
texts and stories. Above that, Weckman said, they have become ingrained
in the thoughts of Hindus.
Cow sanctuaries dot the country.
An Adopt-A-Cow farm in Port Royal, Pa., one sustained by donations of animal
lovers and Hindus, houses 38 cows. A sanctuary in Carriere, Miss., houses
132, according to its Web site.
In Moundsville, W.Va., 24 cows are
protected on a 160-acre farm run by William Dove, also known as Balabhadra
das. He incorporated the farm as the International Society for Cow Protection.
"Many of my neighbors are cattle
ranchers, but we're all friends," Dove said. "They have their lifestyle
and we have our lifestyle."
Dove bought his farm from the New
Vrindaban Community, a nearby religious center with more than 100 cows.
Cows have won the hearts of non-Hindus
as well.
Helga Tacreiter, who grew up loving
dogs, runs a 13-cow sanctuary in Shiloh, N.J., a project she started after
working on a dairy farm.
"I met the cows and I was just wowed
by them," said Tacreiter, 50.
Tacreiter said she thinks of cows
as people in the sense that dogs are sometimes considered family members.
To support herself and the farm, she makes and sells "cowches," life-sized,
cow-like floor pillows.
If Tacreiter hears that someone
thinks she's going to extremes for the cows, she invites that person to
her farm. "As soon as they meet the cows, they get it," she said.
Back at the Lakshmi Cow Sanctuary,
Sastri's eyes dance as he watches the cows wander away. He wished more
people knew them as well as he does.
"They only see them as meat," he
said. "Animals have a soul, personality, they interact. Unfortunately people
don't see that."
