Bull Power

Most of the power that we use in our daily life is coming from the non-renewable energy sources like petroleum and coal, which are limited in the nature. With depleting natural resources and consequent increase in prices of all essentials, scientists are looking for the alternative energy source in the wind, tides and so on with not much feasible solution.

Why not we look at the traditional way of Indian culture which satisfied the energy needs of the society since ages? The ancient wisdom allowed the people to look in the much larger picture than just at the immediate solution. The traditional Indian culture views this world as the perfect creation of God where the needs of all the living entities are provided for with least effort. Humans can satisfy all their needs from the nature in a sustainable way by being in harmony with the nature. Isopanisad says “One may aspire to live for hundreds of years if he continuously goes on working in that way, for that sort of work will not bind him. There is no alternative to this way for man.” Even the science agrees on the inherent inter-relation between various life forms, for example the carbon-dioxide released by animals is used by plants for preparing food for the animals.

Traditional culture recognizes the inter-relation between the cows and the humans. For ages Indians used the bulls as the source of the power for various types of work. Bulls are easy to be trained and have tremendous strength to do many types of work. Even today we can see the use of bull for farming, even though in decline. Bulls can carry load as much as two tons for 20 to 30km per day. Traditionally bulls were also used for husking paddy, extracting oil in the oil-mills. Bull power can also be used for drawing water from the wells, making natural cement, bricks etc. Apart from this the cow dung is traditionally used as the natural fertilizer, the cow dung cakes for cooking. Now-a-days the development of Animal Driven Prime mover also proves the effectiveness of using bull power.

In spite of so many advantages there is a decreasing usage of bull power even in the rural villages, trying to imitate the city life style based on the depleting oil resources. Due to lack of proper awareness of advantages of bulls and the mass propaganda for the machine based farming, even villages are giving up the traditional sustainable source of the power, even though research proves farming with bulls is better than with machines.

We being carried away by the temporary advantages of the non-renewable sources are destroying the traditional sustainable sources. We may not possibly shift to the rural setup immediately giving up all the modern comforts but let’s give encouragement to the existing rural village to maintain the culture for, one day it can save the humanity from calamity.