The picture of the sacrificial goats of the Mahabhadrakali Amman Kovil in Munneswaram, Chilaw, in the front page of the Sunday Times of 6.9.2009 exposes the practice that still persists even in this enlightened civilized modern world.
In Hindu literature there is a story that Lord Siva had come to a devotee in the guise of a sanyasi and had asked him to prepare a meal for him with the flesh of the devotee’s one and only young son, to test his faith in him.
The devotee did what the sanyasi had asked him to do by killing his beloved son and preparing the meal with his flesh. Thereafter, Lord Siva, who was in the guise of the sanyasi, had resurrected the devotee’s son.
A similar story is in the Jewish religion also. God had appeared to Abraham and had asked him to sacrifice his only son to him at the altar. When Abraham was about to do this, God had intervened and had stopped the killing of the boy. A lamb was sacrificed instead.
However, the Jewish religion and the Christian religion do not have such practices any more.
The government must take stern action to prevent such acts of killing animals in large numbers in public in, above all, the temple which is said to be the house of God. No God of any religion will want the lives of innocent animals to be sacrificed.
Arul |
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