Research Article

 

Animal Welfare Aspects at Religious Slaughter of Animal in the Ritual Caru in Bali

 

I Ketut Diarmita1*,Dewa Komang Tantra 2, I Nengah Duija3

1Directorate General of Animal Husbandry and Animal Health. Jakarta, Indonesia; 2Ganesha University of Education, Singaraja, Bali Indonesia; 3Hindu Dharma Institute of Negeri Denpasar, Bali Indonesia.

 

Received | October 12, 2018; Accepted | May 14, 2019; Published | June 30, 2019

*Correspondence | I Ketut Diarmita, Directorate General of Animal Husbandry and Animal Health. Jakarta, Indonesia; Email: iketutdiarmita56@yahoo.co.id

Citation | Diarmita IK, Tantra DK, Duija IN (2019). Animal welfare aspects at religious slaughter of animal in the ritual caru in bali. Adv. Anim. Vet. Sci. 7(8): 664-667.

DOI | http://dx.doi.org/10.17582/journal.aavs/2019/7.8.664.667

ISSN (Online) | 2307-8316; ISSN (Print) | 2309-3331

Copyright © 2019 Diarmita et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Generally according to Hinduism, there are five types of holy sacrifices or Yadnya ceremonies called pañca Yadnya in Bali. The panca Yadnya are five main beliefs are made to sustain the balance and the various types of holy sacrifices are each meant to address a particular subject. One of the panca yadnya ceremonies is the bhuta yadnya ceremony which is a sacred sacrifice to the bhuta which is a subtle spirit that often disrupts human tranquility. The essence of bhuta Yadnya is to carry out life to preserve and protect the purity of nature and live according to the cycle of time. Bhuta Yadnya ceremonies are often held in the form of small degree to the largest, which aim to maintain the balance of the relationship between the universe and the human self, the macrocosm with the microcosm (Sumadi, 2013).

 

In the ritual Caru performed sacred sacrifices which mainly used various animal facilities. Sacrifices carried out varied, depending on the size of the Caru type. In the small Sanskrit dictionary it is stated that the word Caru means good and beautiful. Caru can also be interpreted as sacrifice which is basically a meat offering intended for the power of evil spirits (bhuta) in which the symbolic classification of the Balinese is connected with the downward direction (sor). The various type of animal are traditionally slaughtered to Caru rituals. The process during religious slaughter has been heavily criticized, especially from external and internal Hindus, including animal lovers, because they are considered to poor welfare animal. The external parties, often judge this ritual caru from the process of animal slaughter alone without considered the philosophy (tatwa), ethics (susila), and ritual (upacara). Hinduism has three basic framework, namely tattva (philosophy), susila (ethics), and upacara (ritual) and this framework to be perfect if the three elements are intact or without defects (Donder, 2012). It is very important to demonstrate the philosophy, ethics and ritual aspect of slaughter animal in the ritual caru. The objective of this study was to assess animal welfare aspects at religious slaughter of animal in the ritual Caru in Bali

 

MATERIALS AND METHODS

 

The location of this study covered the entire island of Bali. Interviewers were visited at five Grya Locus around Bali. Gryalocus in Bali refers to a place of Pandita. Participatory research methods were used to interview five of pandita in Grya locus in a relatively short period of time that regularly carries out Caru rituals either in the house or invited by Hindus to perform rituals. A total of five Pandita were asked if they had been involved in caru ritual using structured questionnaires. Furthermore, data were collected through direct observation in the field, library study, and document study. Three categories of variables were included in the questionnaire: philosophy, ethics and ritual aspect during animal slaughter. Descriptive were used to display the data. The collected data were analyze using Qualitative analysis.

 

RESULT AND DISSCUSSION

 

Philosophy (Tatwa) Aspect During Animal Slaughter in the Ritual Caru

The Balinese Hinduism is based on the concept of Tri Hita Karana, the belief that there should be balanced relationships between man and God, man and all other people, and man and nature. The Balinese rituals are holy sacrifices are made to sustain the balance. The Caru ceremony in Balinese or bhuta yajna in Sanskrit is the one of various types of holy sacrifices. The ritual Caru in Bali is a sacred ritual that is often held to harmonize the relationship between humans and the surrounding environment. In conducting the Caru ceremony, usually use a lot of offerings.

 

The Hindu religion generally considers all life forms as sacred, and various species ranging from the tiny insect to gigantic elephant are regarded as equally sacred (Agoramoorthy and Hsu, 2012). According to Manawa Dharmasastra, animals that are sacrificed in such ceremonies will be incarnated into higher level in the next life. And people who sacrifice those animals also will have higher level in the next life because they help them to get a better life in the next.

 

In the nature of the tattwa which is contained in the execution of Caru rituals, in reality spiritual technology serves as a means for humans to achieve sacred and noble goals. Human sacrifice has been practiced on a number of occasions and in many cultures. The various rationales behind human sacrifice are the same that motivate religious sacrifice in general (Pandey, 2015). In Hinduism, every religious ceremony has a theological and philosophical basis, and there is no ritual in Hinduism carried out on the basis of blind dogma or belief. The purpose of rituals in Hinduism as outlined in pancamahayajna is to develop moral qualities and develop a sense of devotion to God, sages, ancestors, families, communities, and all beings. Rituals are mentioned in sacred literature as a means of purifying the ego, this is the purpose of all rituals. Hindu rituals are not speculative dogmatic actions that are meaningless, but ritual is a tool or means that is in accordance with the requirements of science and technology in the religious and spiritual fields that can facilitate the achievement of spiritual goals. Therefore every element or element used in the ritual has a very important meaning which can be explained philosophically, theologically and rationally.

 

The Ethics Aspect During Animal Slaughter in the Ritual Caru.

From the ethics aspect, the handling of the animals used in the Caru ritual is carried out in a respectful and moral manner commensurate with being abusive towards fellow humans. Oral traditions and practical traditions show that long before the time of the Caru ritual, animals that will be used as a means of Caru were carefully selected to get the proper animals for Caru ritual facilities. The intended feasibility is that the animal must be healthy and not deformed, after that it is spun (mated) or marked so that the animal is not swapped. After that, if the animal is seen as rather wild and not easily caught, then the animal should be grounded or bred. All types of animals that are used as means of Caru before being slaughtered are first purified or sacralized. Furthermore, the animals were taken to the slaughtering ritual place, given sacredisations, such as giving sacred clothes (Wastra, in the procession map), tirtapralina and symbolic by touching weapons to the animal’s body and then considered sacred and suitable for use as a means yajña ceremony.

 

The slaughter procedure is complex and often a situation may represent several potential stress factors. For example, transport is associated with a change in physical and social environment, movements of the lorry that may cause physical shocks and unfavourable climatic conditions (Terlouw et al., 2008).

 

Based on the observation result, the animal were kept in good cage before slaughtered. Feed and water were provided ad libitum at holding area. From the aspect of ethics studies / practices of using animals in Caru rituals in Bali, it is associated with the application of welfare animal principles, it can be found that in general the practice of performing Caru rituals is in accordance with the application of welfare animal principles as it is likely to improve the welfare of animals prior to slaughter The suitability is very evident from the moral practices above, where the animals used in the caru ritual have been attempted to refer to the principles of Animal Welfare. The FAO (2013) recommends that animals held for more than 8 hr must be provided with water to prevent animal welfare concerns.

 

In this study, indicated that the animal killing in religious slaughter without stunning. They were use a sharp knife to facilitate a swift way of bleeding the animals with minimum pain. Pain caused by neck incision has been the subject of much debate in science community. Slaughter of animals without prior stunning is associated with a number of potential welfare issues (Gibson et al., 2009). Sharp knives during exsanguination can decrease suffering (Qekwana et al., 2006). The sharp knife use killing in slaughter produces minimal behavioral reactions and therefore that such a neck cut is not perceived by the animal as painful.

 

The Ritual Aspect During Animal Slaughter in the Ritual Caru

Religious slaughter has always been a controversial and emotive subject, caught between animal welfare considerations, cultural and human rights issues (Cenci-Goga et al., 2013). There is considerable debate on the role of religion in animal welfare, with implications for the study of welfare for welfare assessment and for implementation of solutions to welfare problems. Ritual or religious ceremony using animal sacrifice poses the earliest form of sacrifice made by all religions. In Bali, there are many activity on how Hindu provides an ethic of environmental concern and nonhuman animal protection. In Hindus, killing of non-human animals for ritual that is, permissible based on a set of ethical and religious standards. Consider the issue of animal sacrifice in relation to doctrine of karma. Killing animal for enjoyment bring bad karma. Its the sacrificed animal which becomes sacred and privileged, accrues merit and thus improve its karma (Howe, 2005). In ritual slaughtering, the key issue seems to be the lack of implementation of animal stunning methods employed.

 

Conclusion

 

The philosophy , ethics and ritual aspect during traditional slaughter animal in the ritual caru have a positive impact on their welfare. Animal slaughtering in the ritual caru, seems to be the lack of animal stunning techniques employed. It is recommended that culturally appropriate standard operation procedure on kept animal, restraint, and slaughter of various animal be produced for use in Bali. More research is developed should give priority to the study on possible, religiously acceptable stunning, as appears to be happening already

 

Acknowledgements

 

Special thanks are addressed to Hindu Dharma Institute of Negeri Denpasar, Bali Indonesia for allowing this research to be held.

 

Conflict of interest

 

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

 

Authors Contribution

 

All of the authors have read and approved the manuscript.

 

References

 

• Agoramoorthy G, Hsu MJ (2012). The significance of cows in Indian society between sacredness and economy. Anthropol. Notebooks. 18 (3): 5–12.

• Cenci-Gog BT, Sechi P, Cuccurese A, Poeta A, De Angelis G, Marini P, Mattiacci , Rossi R, Pezzato R, Salamano G, Santori P (2013). Religious Slaughter: Data from Surveys and Spot-Check Visits in Italy and Animal Welfare Issues. Societ. Anim. 21: 459-488. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685306-12341311

• Donder IK (2012). The Essence Of Animal Sacrifice In Balinese Hindu Ritual: Discourse around Theological, Philosophical, Mythological, Ritual and Scientific Phenomena. Int. J. Multidisciplin. Educat. Res. 1(4):1-27.

• Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). 2013. Chapter 7: Slaughter of livestock. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/x6909e/x6909e09.htm

• Howe L (2005). The Changing World of Bali: Religion, Society and Tourism. Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, London and New York.

• Gibson TJ, Johnson CB, Murrell JC, Chambers JP, Stafford KJ, Mellor DJ (2009). Components of electroencephalographic responses to slaughter in halothane-anaesthesised calves: effects of cutting neck tissue compared with major blood vessales. New Zealand Vet. J. 57 (2) : 84-89 https://doi.org/10.1080/00480169.2009.36883

• Pandey A (2015). Ritual Killing and Human Sacrifice: Human Sacrifice Today. SM J. Pharmac. Ther. 1(1): 1004.

• Qekwana DN, McCrindle CME, Oguttu JW, Grace D, Cenci-Goga BT (2016). Assessment of Welfare Issues During Traditional Slaughter of Goats in Pretoria, South Africa, J. Appl. Anim. Welfare Sci. 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888705.2016.1217486

• Sumadi IK (2013). Upacara Sebagai Golden Ways Meningkatkan Kejahteraan Umat Hindu. Hitangkarah. 1(1):1-10.

• Terlouw EMC, Arnould C, Auperin B, Berri C, Le Bihan-Duval E, Deiss V, Lefe`vre F, Lensink BJ, Mounier L (2008). Pre-slaughter conditions, animal stress and welfare: Current status and possible future research. Animal. 2(10) :1501–1517. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731108002723