Ancient Iran, Mother Cow and her protection in Zarathustrianism

Of all the religions that rose and fell in known civilization history, Zarathustrianism offers us, perhaps nearest approach to Vedic Religion and at times even outshines as far as preserving cultural legacy like lives of bovines.

One of the great similarity starts by Pahlavi language and her reflection of Sanskrit. You don’t seek Etymology far to understand this; with a few linguistic alternations and variations of inflexions, one can see same roots behind technical words. Take an example of gos(cow) of Zend-Avesta is Sanskrit root go (cow).

• Gos(Cow) -> Go
• Gomes(Urine) -> Gomedh

Sirozah are sacred invocations mentioned in Zarathustrianism , to revere 30 deities. One each for day of the month. Sirozahs are sung towards revering soul of the cow. And it goes like :

• “We sacrifice “to the body of the cow, to the powerful Drvaspa, made by Mazda and Holy”
• “ We sacrifice into the soul of the bounteous cow”
• The destruction of any living being is injury to Drvaspa (Drvaspa (druuāspā, drvāspā, drwāspā) is the Avestan language name of an “enigmatic” and “strangely discreet”[1] Zoroastrian divinity, whose name literally means “with solid horses” and which she is then nominally the hypostasis of.) – This saws bloodless sacrifice which is now corrupted.
• The cow straying in unknown paths , being driven away, longs for stables, and invokes the aid of Mithra (Compare it with मित्र – सूर्य of Vedas) , the lord of wide pastures.
In Zoroastrian rituals , bull too play important role. For Zoroastrian cosmology, bull enjoys the position of Adam of animal world. For example Sirozah mentions:
• We sacrifice onto the moon who keeps seeds of bull intake.
Read Zend-Avesta for numerous striking similarities with Vedas.

To the indo-Iranian, the prefatory value of Gomez (Cow urine) and Nirang(Ox Urine) can never be minimized. For them, material uncleanliness, personal defilement, constitutional malady , any corporeal blemish, either inherent or external, is capable of being purged though properly instrumented Cow/Ox urine.

Example passage (Read Zend-Avesta for greater details)
“O maker of the material world, what is the food that woman shall first take?”
“Gomez (Cow/Ox Urine) mixed with ashes, three draughts of it, or six or nine to send down the Dakhma within her womb. After that, she can take boiling milk of cow or goat without water. ”

Thus, cattle are always held sacred by the Iranian. Cow slaughter is a crime deserving capital punishment. Cow and Bull are symbol of material plenty and spiritual splendor.
May Iranian descendents understand this and start revering Cows again and stop her slaughter.