Can Hindus Have Pets? Does Hinduism Allow Hindus to Keep Pets at Home?: Part 2
In Part 1 of this article, we saw the reasons why Hinduism, the Hindu scriptures, and the Mahatmas prohibit us from keeping animals as pets.
We shall now look at some of the reasons for the prohibitions in this article.
Saucha/Cleanliness
Sanatana Dharma places a very high premium on cleanliness, which in Sanskrit is called "Saucha": it refers to purity of mind, speech and body. In point of fact, Saucha is the first of the Niyamas of Yoga. It has been variously discussed in many scriptures like the Mahabharata and Yoga Sutras.
Saucha includes outer purity of body as well as inner purity of mind. It is practised for one's good health as well as for the well-being of the society and world at large. The ancient sages and rishies, the authors of the scriptures, laws, good conduct governing the behaviour of the human society identified agents that will disrupt the mind and the constitution of the humans. They realised that we humans' and animals' microbiome, microbes and the pathogens that live in their communities are quite averse to and incompatible with one another. The ancients realised the potentials for zoonosis in their interactions. Hence, they prohibited, outlawed and tabooed all forms of close interactions between animals and humans. Therefore, keeping a pet in the house was never a practice that was favourably accepted by the scriptures and Mahatmas.
Modern science has conclusive proofs as to what zoonosis can do to harm animals and humans alike.
1. What is a zoonotic disease?
Zoonotic disease or zoonoses are infections or diseases that can be transmitted from an animal to a human being. Pets can be a source of human infection by various pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi.
Altogether, there are well over one hundred diseases that are capable of being transmitted from animals to humans. All domestic animals including dogs, cats, birds, horses, cows, sheep, goats, and rabbits can potentially spread diseases to people.
The risk of transmission become higher in people with a compromised immune system from disease or medication, such as:
1. people with AIDS/HIV.
2. people on chemotherapy or receiving radiation therapy.
3. people who are elderly or have chronic diseases.
4. people with congenital immune deficiencies.
5. people who have received organ or bone marrow transplants.
6. pregnant women (the fetal immune system is not fully developed, and the pregnant woman's immune system is altered during pregnancy).
2. But what about humans transmitting diseases to animals?
Transmission of disease can occur from humans to pets like dogs and cats, too. Sore throats, tuberculosis, and fleas are common examples. Additionally, enteritis due to Campylobacter and Salmonella infections can be passed from an infected family member to the pet like dog, cat, etc.
Coronaviruses have lived and thrived in animals for thousands of years, but only a handful have been known to make the jump from animal to humans and cause illness. The recent incident of COVID-19 virus is a typical example of the danger of diseases that can spread from animals to humans and vice. In point of fact, it has also been found that pets like cats and dogs can transmit the COVID-19 virus to humans.
It turns out SARS-CoV-2 can hijack animal cells, too. Scientists believe the disease originated in Chinese horseshoe bats before it jumped into an intermediary animal and, from there, found its way into humans. The virus is able to inject itself into cells by binding to a cell surface protein known as ACE2, which is present in many species of animal.
Further proofs can be found in the following write-up: https://www.aafp.org/afp/2016/1115/p794.html
Cruelty Involved in Keeping Pet
In the history of Kancharla Gopanna, who lived in the 17th century India, popularly known as Bhakta Ramadasu or Bhadrachala Ramadasu, we see why keeping animals or birds as pets is a grave sin.
Although Ramadasu was a devout and faithful devotee of Lord Ramachandra, owing to an unfortunate misunderstanding, he was sent down for twelve years: the devotee underwent unbearable hardships at the hands of cruel jailors who whipped him, starved him and inflicted upon him all sorts of punishments. When prison hardships became unbearable due to torture, he decided to end his life. He kept a cup of poison by his side and prayed to Lord Rama. In the meantime, Lord Rama, who knew his bhakta's twelve years hardship in the prison, managed to get him release. But the question still remained as to why Lord Rama did not do anything to get his bhakta released before the 12th year.
Lord Rama revealed to His brother Laxmana that Ramdas was a pious Brahmin in his previous birth. He had a pet parrot. Lord Rama explained that for the offence of keeping the free bird imprisoned, Ramdas incurred the sin which caused him to undergo suffering in prison for twelve years in the present life. Kabir Das later told this secret to Ramdas when the latter went to him to find out why he, in spite of being a bhakta had to suffer so much.
"I-Care-for-and-Love-My-Pet" Flawed Premise
Pet owners often claim that as long as they lovingly care and take good care of the pets, it is ethically fine to own a pet at home. Cats, dogs, and other pets suffer too much at humans' hands: theoretically, we may seem to be able to provide good homes for our pets, but the incontrovertible fact remains that our concept of "what is good for them" and what a "good home" may not chime in with what the animals want or prefer. No one --- not even the best pet-owner in the world --- has ever been a pet to know what goes on in the minds of the animals that we keep as pets.
Further, the relationship is inherently flawed and we are unable to provide the full lives that these animals deserve. Because they are bred to be dependent on us, the basic relationship between humans and companion animals is flawed because of the difference in power. A sort of Stockholm syndrome, this relationship forces animals to love their owners in order to get affection and food, oftentimes neglecting their animal nature to do so.
The animals rights activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) opposes keeping pets, partially for this reason. An official statement on their website states that animals' "lives are restricted to human homes where they must obey commands and can only eat, drink and even urinate when humans allow them to." It then goes on to list common "mistreatments" of these house pets including declawing cats, not cleaning litter boxes and scolding any creature to get off the furniture or hurry up on its walk.
A writer from University of Kent recently said in an article dated 25.4.2019, "...pet-keeping is fundamentally unjust as it involves the manipulation of animals' bodies, behaviour and emotional lives. For centuries, animals (particularly dogs, horses and rabbits) have been shaped to suit human fashions and fancies. And this often causes animals considerable physical harm..."
Corey Lee Wren, the writer of the article, further says, "Even those animals that are not purpose-bred often face bodily manipulations which impede their comfort and safety. This can include confining clothing, painful leashes that pull at the throat, docked tails and ears, and declawing, which involves the severing of the first digit of each toe in cats... Pets are often (kept) at the whim of their human owners." (The full article can be found here: https://theconversation.com/pets-is-it-ethical-to-keep-them-115647)
Attachment Formed Between Humans and Animals
"The goal of life is Self-realisation. You have taken this body, only to attain the Highest of the highest. On account of 'moha' or force of 'Avidya', you have forgotten the goal." (pg. 23, Spiritual Lessons by Swami Sivananda).
"Our birth", Dr. Archimandrite Irenei reminds us, "is not for the pleasures of this world and its fleeting comforts, but for the glory of God and the attainment of His Kingdom." (pg. 24, The Beginnings of a Life of Prayer by Dr. Archimandrite Irenei, who received his doctorate in Theology from Oxford University and who is the priest of the St. Tikhon OF Zadonsk Church in San Francisco.)
"Lord Krishna again tells us in Bhagavad Gita 8.6:
yam yam vapi smaran bhavam
tyajaty ante kalevaram
tam tam evaiti kaunteya
sada tad-bhava-bhavitah
"Whosoever at the end leaves the body, thinking of any being, to that being only does he
go, O son of Kunti (Arjuna), because of his constant thought of that being!"
In Srimad Bhagavatam 5:9:1-2, we learn of the most unfortunate destiny of a highly evolved sincere devotee with exalted brahminical qualifications: he not only had controlled his mind and the five senses, but he had also studied and understood the entire Vedas and their subsidiary literatures. In spite of all these, he had to take the birth of a deer principally because of his having formed attachment to his pet.
Anthropomorphisation
Just like humans, animals have their own right to existence, liberty and intrinsic unrestricted rights to choose their destinies. Treating animals like humans, superimposing our emotions and feeling upon them, believing that they experience guilt, shame, love and loneliness are all evidence of anthropomorphisation, expert posit. None of us has ever been an animal in this life to exactly feel and express what animals experience, and what goes through their minds.
Expression of Love Does not Extend to Keeping Them as Pets
Feed them, care for them; please leave them alone; bring them not into our homes to rob them of their rights to be animals, to allow them to be what they really are.
We may have the best of intentions to keep a pet, but they do not correlate with what is best for them. It is akin to aliens' abducting us, putting us in their best homes, providing us with everything that they think is good and nice for us, essentially to keep us as their pets. Their good intentions do not do any good to our rights of existence and individuality.
Widespread pet-keeping, an article in the Guardian dated 1st Aug 2017, says "is a relatively recent phenomenon. Until the 19th century, most animals owned by households were working animals that lived alongside humans and were regarded unsentimentally". They have, since then, become pets of Man's utterly selfish reasons.
In conclusion, pet-owning or keeping a pet is thoroughly foreign to a Hindu and Hinduism. It is the influence of colonial hybridisation, an acquired habitude that is worth sloughing off. The Hindu scriptures have prohibited us from keeping pets at home. It is not only sinful but it will also interfere with our spiritual practice and growth, and would eventually paved the way for our attaining Hell.
We shall now look at some of the reasons for the prohibitions in this article.
Saucha/Cleanliness
Sanatana Dharma places a very high premium on cleanliness, which in Sanskrit is called "Saucha": it refers to purity of mind, speech and body. In point of fact, Saucha is the first of the Niyamas of Yoga. It has been variously discussed in many scriptures like the Mahabharata and Yoga Sutras.
Saucha includes outer purity of body as well as inner purity of mind. It is practised for one's good health as well as for the well-being of the society and world at large. The ancient sages and rishies, the authors of the scriptures, laws, good conduct governing the behaviour of the human society identified agents that will disrupt the mind and the constitution of the humans. They realised that we humans' and animals' microbiome, microbes and the pathogens that live in their communities are quite averse to and incompatible with one another. The ancients realised the potentials for zoonosis in their interactions. Hence, they prohibited, outlawed and tabooed all forms of close interactions between animals and humans. Therefore, keeping a pet in the house was never a practice that was favourably accepted by the scriptures and Mahatmas.
Modern science has conclusive proofs as to what zoonosis can do to harm animals and humans alike.
1. What is a zoonotic disease?
Altogether, there are well over one hundred diseases that are capable of being transmitted from animals to humans. All domestic animals including dogs, cats, birds, horses, cows, sheep, goats, and rabbits can potentially spread diseases to people.
The risk of transmission become higher in people with a compromised immune system from disease or medication, such as:
1. people with AIDS/HIV.
2. people on chemotherapy or receiving radiation therapy.
3. people who are elderly or have chronic diseases.
4. people with congenital immune deficiencies.
5. people who have received organ or bone marrow transplants.
6. pregnant women (the fetal immune system is not fully developed, and the pregnant woman's immune system is altered during pregnancy).
2. But what about humans transmitting diseases to animals?
Transmission of disease can occur from humans to pets like dogs and cats, too. Sore throats, tuberculosis, and fleas are common examples. Additionally, enteritis due to Campylobacter and Salmonella infections can be passed from an infected family member to the pet like dog, cat, etc.
It turns out SARS-CoV-2 can hijack animal cells, too. Scientists believe the disease originated in Chinese horseshoe bats before it jumped into an intermediary animal and, from there, found its way into humans. The virus is able to inject itself into cells by binding to a cell surface protein known as ACE2, which is present in many species of animal.
Further proofs can be found in the following write-up: https://www.aafp.org/afp/2016/1115/p794.html
Cruelty Involved in Keeping Pet
In the history of Kancharla Gopanna, who lived in the 17th century India, popularly known as Bhakta Ramadasu or Bhadrachala Ramadasu, we see why keeping animals or birds as pets is a grave sin.
Although Ramadasu was a devout and faithful devotee of Lord Ramachandra, owing to an unfortunate misunderstanding, he was sent down for twelve years: the devotee underwent unbearable hardships at the hands of cruel jailors who whipped him, starved him and inflicted upon him all sorts of punishments. When prison hardships became unbearable due to torture, he decided to end his life. He kept a cup of poison by his side and prayed to Lord Rama. In the meantime, Lord Rama, who knew his bhakta's twelve years hardship in the prison, managed to get him release. But the question still remained as to why Lord Rama did not do anything to get his bhakta released before the 12th year.
"I-Care-for-and-Love-My-Pet" Flawed Premise
Pet owners often claim that as long as they lovingly care and take good care of the pets, it is ethically fine to own a pet at home. Cats, dogs, and other pets suffer too much at humans' hands: theoretically, we may seem to be able to provide good homes for our pets, but the incontrovertible fact remains that our concept of "what is good for them" and what a "good home" may not chime in with what the animals want or prefer. No one --- not even the best pet-owner in the world --- has ever been a pet to know what goes on in the minds of the animals that we keep as pets.
The animals rights activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) opposes keeping pets, partially for this reason. An official statement on their website states that animals' "lives are restricted to human homes where they must obey commands and can only eat, drink and even urinate when humans allow them to." It then goes on to list common "mistreatments" of these house pets including declawing cats, not cleaning litter boxes and scolding any creature to get off the furniture or hurry up on its walk.
A writer from University of Kent recently said in an article dated 25.4.2019, "...pet-keeping is fundamentally unjust as it involves the manipulation of animals' bodies, behaviour and emotional lives. For centuries, animals (particularly dogs, horses and rabbits) have been shaped to suit human fashions and fancies. And this often causes animals considerable physical harm..."
Corey Lee Wren, the writer of the article, further says, "Even those animals that are not purpose-bred often face bodily manipulations which impede their comfort and safety. This can include confining clothing, painful leashes that pull at the throat, docked tails and ears, and declawing, which involves the severing of the first digit of each toe in cats... Pets are often (kept) at the whim of their human owners." (The full article can be found here: https://theconversation.com/pets-is-it-ethical-to-keep-them-115647)
Attachment Formed Between Humans and Animals
"The goal of life is Self-realisation. You have taken this body, only to attain the Highest of the highest. On account of 'moha' or force of 'Avidya', you have forgotten the goal." (pg. 23, Spiritual Lessons by Swami Sivananda).
"Our birth", Dr. Archimandrite Irenei reminds us, "is not for the pleasures of this world and its fleeting comforts, but for the glory of God and the attainment of His Kingdom." (pg. 24, The Beginnings of a Life of Prayer by Dr. Archimandrite Irenei, who received his doctorate in Theology from Oxford University and who is the priest of the St. Tikhon OF Zadonsk Church in San Francisco.)
"Lord Krishna again tells us in Bhagavad Gita 8.6:
yam yam vapi smaran bhavam
tyajaty ante kalevaram
tam tam evaiti kaunteya
sada tad-bhava-bhavitah
"Whosoever at the end leaves the body, thinking of any being, to that being only does he
go, O son of Kunti (Arjuna), because of his constant thought of that being!"
Anthropomorphisation
Just like humans, animals have their own right to existence, liberty and intrinsic unrestricted rights to choose their destinies. Treating animals like humans, superimposing our emotions and feeling upon them, believing that they experience guilt, shame, love and loneliness are all evidence of anthropomorphisation, expert posit. None of us has ever been an animal in this life to exactly feel and express what animals experience, and what goes through their minds.
Feed them, care for them; please leave them alone; bring them not into our homes to rob them of their rights to be animals, to allow them to be what they really are.
We may have the best of intentions to keep a pet, but they do not correlate with what is best for them. It is akin to aliens' abducting us, putting us in their best homes, providing us with everything that they think is good and nice for us, essentially to keep us as their pets. Their good intentions do not do any good to our rights of existence and individuality.
In conclusion, pet-owning or keeping a pet is thoroughly foreign to a Hindu and Hinduism. It is the influence of colonial hybridisation, an acquired habitude that is worth sloughing off. The Hindu scriptures have prohibited us from keeping pets at home. It is not only sinful but it will also interfere with our spiritual practice and growth, and would eventually paved the way for our attaining Hell.
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