Holy Cattle In Puri Editorial Photo

India, Orissa: holy cattle in the holy city of Puri. Cattle are considered sacred in various world religions, most notably Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism. The cow has been a symbol of wealth since ancient Vedic times. Hinduism is based on the concept of omnipresence of the Divine, and the presence of a soul in all creatures, including bovines. Thus, by that definition, killing any animal would be a sin: one would be obstructing the natural cycle of birth and death of that creature, and the creature would have to be reborn in that same form because of its unnatural death. Historically, even Krishna, one of the most revered forms of the Divine, tended cows.