20201103 Gośālā Visit in South India

The following is a Gośālā visit via Zoom to South India by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on November 3^rd, 2020 in Śrīdhāma Māyāpur, India.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
hariḥ oṁ tat sat

Jayapatākā Swami: […] well taking care of the pleasure of Lord Dāmodara. I think I asked Śrīvatsa Śyāmasundara dāsa to get the address, status, of each gośālā, some are directly under ISKCON temple, some as preaching centers, some as extension centers and some as outposts. So what the status they have, how many cows they have, bulls, bullocks and calves. How much milk they get? I am asking him to find out. Now we are going on a quick tour, and you are all welcome to come along. We have four minutes in each gośālā. So Śrīvatsa Śyāmasundara hurry up! 4 minutes each! 20 gośālās and 18 minutes.

Wow, who is this? ISKCON Nellore.

Śrīvatsa Śyāmasundara dāsa: Yes Guru Mahārāja!

Devotee: Hare Kṛṣṇa Guru Mahārāja, please accept my humble obeisances at your lotusfeet Mahārāja. Here we have three cows and two calves Guru Mahārāja.

Jayapatākā Swami: How are they fed?

Devotee: We get donations from devotees and there are five devotees taking care of the gośālā. A veterinary doctor visits.

Jayapatākā Swami: You are in charge of the cows?

Devotee: Nidhi Mātājī is in charge of the gośālā for past five years.

Revatī Ramaṇa dāsa: In Tirupati we have four gośālās. Numbering around 400 cows. One gośālā is just behind the temple. The second gośālā is about 3km from temple and in a farm where you stayed when you were sick we have a gośālā, and in another farm about 20km from here. In the temple gośālā we have 79 cows and we can go for a tour. The second gośālā 109 cows. The third gośālā we have 88 cows and the fourth gośālā we have 98. Total 374. We have leaders here.

Jayapatākā Swami: How much milk each one gives?

Revatī Ramaṇa dāsa: We get about 80 liters for Rādhā Govinda and the devotees.

Jayapatākā Swami: In America there is one farm which has the indigenous Indian cows and they sell the milk at a high premium. A2 milk they call it.

I am now on my cow visit. Belgaum has cows in the farm?

Bhakti Rasāmṛta Swami: Humble obeisances to you Mahārāja! Am very happy that you are going on this go tīrtha yātrā, seeing all these gośālās. Actually, we have a farm about 40 km from Belgaum and that is in the countryside and it is in the middle of the forest. So we don’t have any network for telephone or internet there. So unfortunately, we are not in a position to take you live over there.

Jayapatākā Swami: You can send me a video maybe?

Bhakti Rasāmṛta Swami: Certainly, we will do that, we will be happy to do that Mahārāja.

Jayapatākā Swami: I would like to send my best wishes to all the devotees. I heard your gośālā is expert at making different medicines and uses of the cow urine and dung.

Bhakti Rasamṛta Swami: Yes, we have been doing that. But we have run into some technical issues with the government with regard to licensing and so we are dealing with that.

Jayapatākā Swami: What is that?

Bhakti Rasāmṛta Swami: Licensing problem. One needs a license not only for manufacturing, but a separate license is required to market each of these products. So we have been doing this unofficially for years together, all the temples are probably doing that. But I think everybody will have to do it in a legal way so that there will be no problems in the future.

Jayapatākā Swami: Interesting point.

Now we are in ISKCON Coimbatore.

Jayapatākā Swami: Wow! You can send me the list of all the eleven items. Thank you very much! How many cows you have?

Devotee: 7 totally, 3 cows, 4 calves.

Bhakti Rasāmṛta Swami: Sorry Mahārāja, got cut off because of internet problem. I was saying that we have forest land there, so we have the cows grazing in different plots and they leave early in the morning and come back in the evening. And so we need the cow dung to fertilize the land. So we don’t use the cow dung for products from there. We have a small gośālā in the temple premises but we have only about 7 cows there. So we use their cow dung sometimes to develop the products. We also have a gośālā a few km away from our farm project where we again have some cows there. So basically we have gośālās in three places. But we are trying to be a little more natural in our farm projects. We try to see that we want to let them graze and eat as much grass as they can, fresh. So that they will be healthier and will get a lot of exercise. Also it becomes expensive to maintain them. It is called low maintenance cow care. That is in short what we are trying to do Mahārāja.

Jayapatākā Swami: That means needs a lot of area.

Bhakti Rasāmṛta Swami: Yes it needs a lot of area. The cow care needs a lot of space and grazing is a section for the cows and where it is not possible, at least a courtyard as we saw. But it is best where there is open land.

Jayapatākā Swami: So you can send your videos of your two forest farm lands. Thank you.

Bhakti Rasāmṛta Swami: We will send you the video Mahārāja. Thank you Mahārāja! Please accept my humble obeisances!

Jayapatākā Swami: Yudhiṣṭhira Govinda – you have four minutes.

Yudhiṣṭhira Govinda dāsa: We have 18 bulls and close to 60 cows.

Jayapatākā Swami: Regular licensing procedure, all the gośālās could be more economically viable. Cow urine medicine is very popular. Because generally the cows are giving half liter or one liter milk so we could give the urine medicine.

We can have a standard thing and we can duplicate that in different states. It is very nice. In Tirupati alone they have three gośālās, and 400 cows. Anantapur they have 200. Madurai they have 400 cows. I was amazed! Alright thank you very much!

Sumitra Kṛṣṇa dāsa: Hare Kṛṣṇa Guru Mahārāja!

Jayapatākā Swami: Were you with us on the tour of the gośālās?

Sumitra Kṛṣṇa dāsa: Yes, I was and saw the wonderful gośālās and heard the wonderful reports. There are more gośālās in South India than …

Jayapatākā Swami: I heard there are another 20 but don’t like to be revealed. This was my first visit to Hebri.

Thank you all!