Festival where 500,000 animals are decapitated ‘to please goddess’ is called off

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Metro.co.uk

Rob Waugh for Metro.co.uk Wednesday 29 Jul 2015 5:04 pm

A horrifying festival where 500,000 innocent animals were decapitated by Hindu worshippers has been cancelled – and will never take place again.

Half a million animals were killed – many decapitated – at the Gadhimai festival in Nepal in 2009, and 250,000 in 2014.

Buffalo, goats and chickens were killed by worshippers to appease a Hindu goddess, in the world’s largest display of animal sacrifice.

The chairman of the Gadhimai Temple Trust, which organised the previous festivals said, ‘The time has come to replace killing and violence with peaceful worship and celebration.’


Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2015/07/29/festival-where-500000-animals-are-decapitated-to-please-goddess-is-called-off-5318515/

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This makes that dentist look like a saint.

Pictures at link. Advice: don't do it.

Here's a more recognizable (for me) source. Gruesome picture here too.

Nepal Temple Bans Animal Sacrifice at Gadhimai Festival

Global
3:10 pm IST
Jul 29, 2015

By Krishna Pokharel

A mass sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of animals that has taken place twice a decade in Nepal for two and a half centuries will draw to a close after the temple behind it banned slaughter on its premises.

“For generations, pilgrims have sacrificed animals to the Goddess Gadhimai, in the hope of a better life,” Ram Chandra Shah, chairman of the Gadhimai Temple Trust said in a statement Tuesday. “The time has come to replace killing and violence with peaceful worship and celebration.”

Thousands of Hindu pilgrims from India and Nepal take part in the Gadhimai festival every five years. In 2009, they sacrificed an estimated 500,000 buffalos, goats, chickens and other animals in the hope the slaughterings would bring well-being and prosperity to their families.

But temple authorities have come under pressure in recent years from animal-rights activists, who petitioned India’s Supreme Court to ban cross-border transportation of animals for sacrifices in order to put a stop to the practice. ... In 2014, the number of sacrifices at the festival dropped significantly after the court directed India’s government to ensure no animal was exported to Nepal from India without a license.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Yay for an advance in human-nonhuman relations!

Domestically, maybe we could get various corporate restaurant chains to embrace Meatless Mondays.

[brooklynite]

3. Come now; how can you let your western elitist perspective criticize other cultures?

I sure their goddess knows how many chickens she needs and doesn't ask for one more than necessary...

[Liberal_in_LA]

17. plus 100

[marble falls]

2. I'm not looking. I am glad, however, that Gadhimai has evolved in his demands from his.....

worshippers.

[snooper2]

4. And they just let them lay their rotting in shitty field

More fundies...

[mainer]

13. If they were later consumed as food, that would be different.

But to kill for no reason but to rot in the fields is beyond belief.

[Beauregard]

5. Hinduism has some of the most advanced and backward religious practices in the world.

Everything from Vedanta to beheading chickens.

[YOHABLO]

8. "advanced" and ''backward'' I don't get it.

[Beauregard]

10. Vedanta is a highly philosophical form of Hinduism

Meditation, metaphysics, ethical teachings etc. That's advanced. But there are also barbaric forms of worship, e.g., slaughtering thousands of animals in honor of the goddess of power. That's backward.

[Xithras]

16. Hinduism isn't really one religion.

Hinduism is a collection of different religions, often with very different practices and traditions, that share a set of core beliefs and ideals. Some of the differences are relatively minor (think: the difference between Anglicans and Catholics), while others are fairly substantial, laying out completely different paths to enlightenment. And that's before you even get into the hodgepodge of randomness that is Folk Hinduism (Hinduism merged with pre-Hindu tradition that stretches back to the prehistoric era). Many westerners don't appreciate how OLD the Hindu faith is in India, and how ancient a lot of the various folk branches are. There are Hindu practices followed in some of the Himalayan valley's (which are ONLY practiced in those particular valleys) that have been practiced for thousands of years.

This slaughter sounds like its it's a fairly recent thing though, so I'm glad to see it ending.

[packman]

6. But, but, but....It's Heritage

Sarcasm aside - I've seen pixs of that animal slaughter and it's disgusting, vile and evil in every sense of what religion is espoused to be. However, I'm going to bet that the members of this group is still going to do it in a less public venue.

[dhill926]

7. so...cows are sacred...

but everything else is fair game...crazy....

[Matariki]

15. Different sects.

[YOHABLO]

9. Just think if we believed in the fortitude of the human rather than some made up visions.

[Coventina]

11. Thank Goddess!

Why humans ever thought a superior being would want depravity done in their name completely escapes me.

[Sunlei]

14. Japan needs to stop the dolphin slaughers too, its not culture when this year they 'sold' 50 babies

to China for Sea Worlds- new China Sea World, another death camp for trained Orcas, dolphins, small whales and sea creatures.

Orcas recently captured by Russia in their artic seas and dolphins captured by Japans Dolphin Slaughter 'neighborhood' for commercial wildlife sales not 'culture'.

[Monk06]

18. The sacrifice is done enmasse and in the same public square. The pic shows a huge public health

disaster waiting to happen

The fly infestation afterwards must be epic