If you think a dog’s life, has always been just that, think again. Shedding new light on attitudes towards Indian dogs is a new book, which sets out to chronicle the several lives of the dog in Indian mythology.

Bringing together little known nuggets from folk tales, temple art, literature, Bibek Debroy says attitudes towards dogs in the subcontinent have varied over time and space.

In Delhi’s Bhairava Temple for example, the tradition of worshipping dogs has a long and little known history. Debroy, who has an abiding interest in mythology, found several references to dogs while translating Hindu mythological texts, which prompted him to trace the changing status of the dog in various cultures and mythologies. His book Sarama and Her Children, draws its name from Sarama, the dog of god Indra mentioned in the Rig Veda and perceived ancestor from which all subsequent dogs have descended. He gave a talk on the book at the Indian Habitat Centre on Friday.

An economist and professor at the Centre for Policy Research by profession and dog lover, Debroy says, “Despite the existence of several perceptions of dogs in mythology, an antipathy towards dogs still seems to persist.”

For instance, dogs were recognised for their utilitarian roles in herding, hunting, and as watchdogs in pre-Vedic and Vedic times. Dogs from the north western region were exported to Persia, with Alexander the great too having a fleet of Indian fighting dogs.

Debroy says that with changing social and economic conditions, and the decline of traditional Vedic gods like Indra, Yama and Rudra, along the corresponding rise in the status of Vishnu and the brahamanical tradition, there was a corresponding decline in the status of the dog. In the increasingly hierarchical society, the utilitarian status of dogs receded and the animal was now associated with the “lower” castes.

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