Importance of cow dung in maintaining herbs, forest and Ayruvedic medicines.

In earlier times cows were taken to the forest or GOCHARS (reserved areas for feeding of cows). There they roamed freely eating the grass and natural herbs which made their milk nutritious and added medical qualities to their milk, in turn they made the soil fertile with their dung which supported and maintained the forests.

But in modern time with non availability of dung, forests get destroyed and with the destruction of forests, many ayurvedic herbal medicines have also became either extinct or scarce.

Unfortunately the poor Indian population is unable to afford to get treated with the costly Bhasma (oxides of various minerals like Gold, Copper, pearls etc.) and with the medicines under Allopathic system. Consequently people in poor Indian villages, carry on with illness for life, without any treatment.

Herbal medicines are the basis of Ayurvedic system of medicines. Similarly, Bhasmas are also the basis of the system. These Bhasmas must be prepared on fire lit with the help of dung cakes only. If coal or electricity is used to make the Bhasmas, then it will be like running an automobile with kerosene instead of petrol. What happens to an automobile engine if kerosene is used, will also happen to the Bhasmas and the patients who consume such Bhasmas. Many medicines have to be purified before their use and such purification can be done only with the help of dung. In different branches of Ayurved, paks are made of different 15medicines, and these paks must also be made on the slow burning cow dung cake fire only. Nowadays, because they are made on other types of fire, they do not yield the desired results and hence people have started losing faith in Ayurved. Thus, by stopping the flow of dung and cow dung cakes to the Ayurvedic system, the government has dealt a death blow to the system and yet they are not tired of talking about providing encouragement to Ayurved!

This is nothing but cheating, and unfortunately the scholars of Ayurved seem to be enjoying this act of cheating on the part of the government. On the one hand they talk of encouraging Ayurved, and on the other, there is destruction of the most essential aspects of Ayurved i.e. herbal medicines, cow’s milk and cow’s ghee, dung and dung cakes.

If we have to prevent Ayurved from dying; the oldest of the medical systems, which is well accepted and which has withstood all the challenges to its principles of diagnosis, treatment etc. for centuries; then it is essential that the government be challenged, its duplicity exposed and it be forced to increase dung cake availability in the interest of this great medical science.