Among high-caste Hindus also sacrifices, including the killing of
cows, were at one time legal. This is shown by several legends,
[385] and is also a historical fact. One of Asoka's royal edicts
prohibited at the capital the celebration of animal sacrifices
and merry-makings involving the use of meat, but in the provinces
apparently they continued to be lawful. [386] This indicates that prior
to the rise of Buddhism such sacrifices had been customary, and also
that when a feast was to be given, involving the consumption of meat,
the animal was offered as a sacrifice. It is noteworthy that Asoka's
rules do not forbid the slaughter of cows. [387] In ancient times
also the most important royal sacrifice was that of the horse. The
development of religious belief and practice in connection with the
killing of domestic animals has thus proceeded on exactly opposite
lines in India as compared with most of the world. Domestic animals
have become more instead of less sacred and several of them cannot
be killed at all. The reason usually given to account for this is
the belief in the transmigration of souls, leading to the conclusion
that the bodies of animals might be tenanted by human souls. Probably
also Buddhism left powerful traces of its influence on the Hindu
view of the sanctity of animal life even after it had ceased to be
the state religion. Perhaps the Brahmans desired to make their faith
more popular and took advantage of the favourite reverence of all
cultivators for the cow to exalt her into one of their most powerful
deities, and at the same time to extend the local cult of Krishna,
the divine cowherd, thus following exactly the contrary course to that
taken by Moses with the golden calf. Generally the growth of political
and national feeling has mainly operated to limit the influence of the
priesthood, and the spread of education and development of reasoned
criticism and discussion have softened the strictness of religious
observance and ritual. Both these factors have been almost entirely
wanting in Hindu society, and this perhaps explains the continued
sanctity attaching to the lives of domestic animals as well as the
unabated power of the caste system.