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EveryCow

Thursday

Guruvar, the day of Dattatreya and his cow in Maharashtra, and in Piedmont the Thursday fair of the fat ox at Carrù.

Thursday is Guruvar, the teacher's day, in much of India, and in Maharashtra and Karnataka the day of Dattatreya, who is shown with a cow behind him. In Europe, Thursday was a common market day, and in the Piedmont town of Carrù it is still the day of a fair for fattened oxen held each December since 1910. Mid-Lent Thursday, the Mi-Carême, once brought out the fat ox in French towns too.

Dattatreya and the cow

Dattatreya combines Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva in one figure and is especially honoured in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat, where Thursday is his day. In paintings he stands with four dogs and a cow, read as the four Vedas and as the earth, which feeds all living things. Many households keep a simple Thursday observance, and a common folk custom on the day is to feed a cow a little gram dal and jaggery. Such customs are held as matters of devotion and family habit, not as rules.

The fat ox fair of Carrù

Carrù, in the province of Cuneo, is in the home country of the Piedmontese breed, and its Fiera del Bue Grasso, the fair of the fat ox, has been held since 1910, traditionally on the second Thursday before Christmas. In the early morning the town's cattle market fills with oxen and young bulls, groomed and blanketed, and judges award prizes for the finest. The fair ends at midday with a meal of bollito misto, the Piedmontese mixed boiled meats, in the town's restaurants. In recent years the programme has extended over several days.

Traditions

  • Guruvar: Thursday, the day of the teacher and of Dattatreya.
  • Fiera del Bue Grasso: The fat ox fair of Carrù, held since 1910.
  • Mi-Carême: The mid-Lent Thursday, once a day for fat ox parades in France.

The breeds

PiedmonteseThe pale grey breed of the Carrù fair.GirA cow often kept and fed by households in western India.KhillariThe draught breed of the Maharashtra countryside.

Sources and further reading

About this page

Written by the EveryCow desk with AI assistance. Customs differ by community and family, and are described here as tradition, not instruction. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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