mythologyWikipedia

Kamadhenu, the wish-granting cow of Hindu tradition, is honoured as the mother of all cows

the gist

Kamadhenu, also known as Surabhi, is a divine bovine-goddess described in Hinduism as the mother of all cows, a miraculous cow of plenty who provides her owner whatever they desire. She is generally depicted as a white cow with a woman's head, the wings of a bird and the tail of a peafowl, or as a white cow with the deities residing within her body: her four legs the Vedas, her horns Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, her eyes the sun and moon. The scriptures differ on her birth. The Mahabharata's Adi Parva says she rose from the churning of the cosmic ocean; in the Puranas she is the daughter of Daksha and wife of the sage Kashyapa; and the Devi Bhagavata Purana tells that Krishna created her, and when a pot of her milk broke, the milk became the cosmic ocean of milk. In the Ramayana she lives with the sage Vasishtha as Sabala, providing a great banquet for King Vishvamitra's army, and Vasishtha refuses to part with her. In Kalidasa's Raghuvamsa, her daughter Nandini blesses King Dilipa with a son, Raghu.

so what

Kamadhenu is not worshipped independently as a goddess; she is honoured through the Hindu veneration of cows, regarded as her earthly embodiments, and in the Devi Bhagavata Purana Krishna decrees that she be worshipped at Diwali on Bali Pratipada. She is a popular and enduring image in Indian art and in contemporary poster art.

similar stories in other cultures

Norse mythology: Auðumbla, a primeval cow whose milk fed the frost jötunn Ymir, and who licked the salty rime rocks for three days to reveal Búri, grandfather of the gods. Greek mythology: Amalthea, nurse of the infant Zeus, linked with the 'horn of Amalthea', the cornucopia, a magical horn said to produce endless food or drink.

more on this

Adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Image: Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons