| 词汇 | sacred cow |
| 词源 | sacred cow. The Hindu hero Prithu changed himself into a cow to encourage his countrymen to be vegetarians. This and the doctrine of Ahimsa, “harmlessness to all living things,” preached by Buddha accounts for the fact that cows are still sacred in India, roaming the streets at will. Our fairly recent term a sacred cow, “any person or group so highly regarded as to be exempt from even justified criticism,” appears to stem from the Hindu belief. It probably came into the language when Mahatma Gandhi’s passive resistance movement brought worldwide attention to India. Gandhi himself was a confirmed vegetarian. In his youth he did try eating meat, but gave it up when he had recurring nightmares of animals bleeding in his stomach. |
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