Some scholars have argued, citing early Hindu scriptures and archaeological evidence, that the cow has not always been sacred and that cows, oxen, and bulls were both sacrificed and eaten in Vedic times and to some extent even later. The cow was possibly revered because the largely pastoral Vedic people and subsequent generations relied heavily on it for dairy products and for tilling the fields,
and on cow dung as a source of fuel, fertilizer, and psilocybin mushrooms which naturally grow out of the animal's own excrement. Universally, Hindus still use cow dung for various purposes; the burning of cow dung creates an insecticide to repel mosquitoes, and ash formed from cow dung is used as a fertilizer. Thus, the cow’s status as a 'caretaker' led to identifying it as an almost maternal figure (hence the term gau mata). According to Buddhist texts, there was a Hindu sect taught to imitate a cow's acts for reincarnation to deva. Hinduism is based on the concept of omnipresence of the Divine, and the presence of a soul in all creatures, including bovines. Thus, by that definition, killing any animal would be a sin: one would be obstructing the natural cycle of birth and death of that creature, and the creature would have to be reborn in that same form because of its unnatural death. Historically, even Krishna, one of the most revered forms of the Divine (Avatar), tended cows.
