KURNOOL: Perhaps for the first time in the centuries-old history of the Srisailam Mallikarjuna Swamy temple, an initiative has been launched to distill cow urine and distribute it to needy pilgrims to cure them of chronic diseases like glucose impairment, cardiovascular disease and general body pain.
Called ‘GauArk,’ the cow urine distillation was launched on Sunday after offering prayers to Maha Ganapathi, said executive officer K.S Rama Rao. He said using a simple distillation process, the prototype was launched with three pots stacked vertically with a space between chambers to allow the process of distillation. The lower chamber was filled with cow urine and the top chamber with the coolest water. The middle chamber has a sieve and a pipe was let out to collect the distilled cow urine, he said.
The temple has a cow stock of 1,151 cows in its goshala and their number is increasing due to a conducive atmosphere, he said. The commercial production would be scaled up after receiving necessary permissions, he added.
A temple priest said cow (Bos indicus) urine/gomutra has been elaborately explained in Ayurveda and described in the Sushruta Samhita, Ashtanga Sangraha and other ayurvedic texts as an effective medicinal substance/secretion of animal origin with innumerable therapeutic properties.
Buoyed by the medicinal and therapuatic properties of cow urine, the temple officials pitched for vending it in-house as the urine of 1,151 cows, running into thousands of litres, goes down the drain, said temple officials.
According to Vedic scholars at Srisailam, gomutra is not a toxic waste material. 95 per cent of it is water, 2.5 per cent consists of urea, and the remaining 2.5 per cent is a mixture of minerals, salts, hormones and enzymes. Gomutra exhibits the property of rasayana tattwa responsible for modulating various bodily functions, including immunity. It augments B- and T-lymphocyte blastogenesis; and IgG, IgA and IgM antibody titers in mice. It also increases secretion of interleukin-1 and interleukin-2, phagocytic activity of macrophages, and is thus helpful in the prevention and control of infections.
Several studies have established the anti-microbial and germicidal properties of gomutra due to the presence of urea, creatinine, swarn kshar (aurum hydroxide), carbolic acid, other phenols, calcium and manganese; its anti-cancer effect is due to uric acid’s antioxidant property and allantoin; immunity is improved by swarn kshar; and wound-healing is promoted by allantoin.
