Glimpses of Mother Krishnabai - II

Mother Krishnabai - Her love for animals

The Ashram cows are reared up by Krishnabai, as her own children.  A cow became so fond of listening to her singing Ram Nam in her sweet voice, which she was habitually doing in their presence, that it would not yield milk unless Mataji sang to it in its favourite tune.  Mataji's love for cows is unique.  She looks after them with the same care and tenderness as show shows to the human inmates of the Ashram.  She spends in the cow-house, at least two hours in the morning and sometimes also over an hour in the evening.  She sees to it that the floor of the house is kept perfectly clean and that the cows are properly fed.  If any cows falls ill, she takes the utmost care of it, and gets it treated either by the local physicians or by a veterinary doctor.  She has given names to all the cows and calves.  We have among them a Ganga, a Jamuna, a Saraswati, a Parvati, a Krishna, a Kaveri, an Indu, a Padma and so on.  She often talks to them as though they were her children.  Such is her love for them! Whenever veterinary officers and lovers of cows visit the Ashram Goshala, they feel immensely delighted at the sight of the well-fed, clean and healthy cattle.

It often occurs that when a cow is being taken away by the person to whom it has been presented, it would not go.  It would refuse to leave the Ashram premises and lie down on the ground would not move, however much it is coaxed.   Mataji would not let such a cow go.  Once it happened that a cow which was presented to an Orphanage in Mangalore was somehow persuaded to go as far as the railway station.  When it was brought near the waggon in which it was to be taken away, it was observed that it was actually shedding tears.  The report came to us about this occurrence, and Mataji asked the men who had led the cow to the station to bring it back to the Ashram.  Such is the love that these cows have for Mataji.