印度圣牛

Indian's Sacred Cow

以一般人的眼光看,别的民族的宗教活动和宗教信仰往往显得费而不惠。之所以会造成这种印象,一方面,因为出于这些宗教活动和信仰的需要,大量稀缺的资源被用在仪式上;另一方面,宗教中的种种禁忌限制人们将那些明显是有用的资源加以利用。从生态学的角度看来,这些宗教的存在似乎是缺乏合理性的。印度禁止屠牛的宗教规定经常被拿来作为支持上述观点的例子。很多人想不通,在印度这样一个时常遭受食物短缺和饥荒威胁的国度,为什么人们在自己都没有东西可吃的情况下,还能够眼看着牛群四处游逛、随处取食而无动于衷?对于这种观点,即认为其他民族的宗教缺乏生态意义上的合理性的看法,马文.哈里斯是不以为然的。他通过对印度进行实证研究,强调指出:在印度,牛不仅不是没有用处,而且还是印度生产条件的必要组成部分;宗教上禁止屠牛有其生态方面的合理性,添增牛犊和保存牛群是为了确保这些有用的牲畜能够持续不断地供应。

Other people＇ s religious practices and beliefs may often appear to be wasteful. They seem to involve a large expenditure of scarce resources on ritual ; they contain taboos that restrict the use of apparently useful materials. Their existence seems irrational in the face of ecological needs. One example that many cite in support of this viewpoint is the religious proscription on the slaughter of cattle in India. How can people permit millions of cattle to roam about eating, but uneaten, in a land so continuously threatened by food shortages and starvation？ In this article, Marvin Harris challenges the view that religious value is ecologically irrational. Dealing with the Indian case, he argues that Indian cattle, far from being useless, are an essential part of Indian＇s productive base. Religious restrictions on killing cattle are ecologically sensible; they have developed and persisted to ensure a continuous supply of these valuable animals.