Aja (Goat)

Aja (Goat) · a-ja, “the goat”

Grammar: masculine noun aja (feminine ajā): the goat. The same word also means “unborn”.

Meaning: the goat, a domestic animal.

In the scriptures: In the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, in the Durgā pūjā, Nārāyaṇa tells Nārada which animals are fit to be offered as bali: the māyāti, the buffalo, the sheep, goats and others. The goat, the pumpkin, birds and deer please the Devī for one year (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 64).

The goat also appears in the karma-vipāka taught by Yama and by Śrī Kṛshṇa. After the Cūrṇakuṇḍa, one is born three births as a goat and three as a cock, and then as a poor, short-lived human with lung disease and without lineage. One who breaks into houses and steals goods, cows, sheep and goats is born seven births as a diseased cow and three births as a goat, and then as a diseased, poor human who loses his wife and relatives (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 30). Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Nanda that one who kills a goat without a yajña, or steals a goat or accepts one as dāna, spends a hundred years in the mala-kuṇḍa and becomes a caṇḍāla; then he is a goat for a year, then a man slain by an enemy’s weapon, and then, freed, a dvija. The brāhmaṇa who lives by selling the name of Śrī Kṛshṇa is born for one birth in a cow’s womb and then, for seven births, as a he-goat, a goat and a he-buffalo (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 85).

Related terms: Bali · Durgā-pūjā · Cūrṇakuṇḍa

Sources

• Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, Chapters 30, 64; Śrī Kṛshṇa Janma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 85