Isn’t it strange that cows, despite not being called “divine” or “holy” in any Hindu scripture, are treated like walking gods in India — free to block roads, interrupt traffic, and occasionally bless political campaigns — while the boar, one of Vishnu’s ten avatars, is seen as filthy and untouchable?
So the animal that saved the Earth is unclean, and the one that gives milk is sacred. Welcome to India, where spirituality often smells like convenience.
The cow’s holiness has little to do with the Vedas or the Puranas. Nowhere does Krishna or Vishnu declare, “Thou shalt worship the cow.” What those texts did say, however, was that the cow was valuable — economically, agriculturally, nutritionally. She gave milk, ghee, dung, and urine — four products that sustained the early Indian economy. Gratitude turned into reverence, reverence turned into ritual, and ritual turned into politics. Before long, the cow became not just an animal, but an emotion.
In contrast, Varaha, the boar incarnation of Vishnu, performed one of the most dramatic rescues in Hindu mythology. He lifted the Earth goddess Bhudevi from the cosmic ocean after she had been dragged into the depths by a demon. You’d think a god who saved the planet would earn a better reputation. Instead, his earthly cousin — the domestic pig — became a symbol of impurity.
Why? Because pigs roll in filth, and humans hate what mirrors their own dirt. The divine Varaha was myth, but the real pig was unpleasant, smelly, and socially useless. And in India, usefulness decides holiness.
This contradiction reveals something uncomfortable about us: our gods follow our convenience. We sanctify what benefits us and demonize what disgusts us. We worship the cow not because she is sacred — but because she is profitable. We reject the pig not because he is impure — but because he offers nothing we want.
Over centuries, this economic logic got dressed up as religion. Politicians repackaged it as identity. The cow became a mascot for faith, nationalism, and morality — all while freely chewing garbage on our streets. The pig, meanwhile, got associated with filth, and untouchability. It’s divine PR at its finest: one animal crowned, another condemned.
And this is not a theological accident — it’s cultural evolution. Hinduism, for all its philosophical depth, has always been adaptable, absorbing practical needs into moral codes. But somewhere in that process, we began confusing utility with divinity, and ritual with righteousness.
If Vishnu were to return as another avatar today, he might not recognize his own myth. Varaha, the boar-god, would probably be denied entry to temples for hygiene reasons. And the cow, a living being, would be paraded as a prop of purity while feeding on plastic.
The tragedy of modern religiosity in India is not that we worship animals. It’s that we worship our selective memory — glorifying what serves us and forgetting what challenges us.
The boar may have saved the Earth once. But in today’s India, even a god has to pass the purity test of public perception.