Why are cows sacred in India?

In order to understand this, one needs to understand a little about Hinduism.Dharma is considered to have four pillars, like how a cow has four legs. Although many animals have four legs, it is a cow’s four legs that the four pillars of dharma are compared with. What is the reason? From the ancient age in India, people have been drinking cow’s milk, rather than the milk of other animals. Scientifically, it has been proven that cow’s milk can provide us with the greatest amount of health. For example, buffalo milk has a lot of fat and calories. Now, we consider the cow as mother who suckles milk, whether or not she has given birth to that which has her milk. This places the cow in the equivalent position of a mother, as it has been nourishing us with its milk from ancient times in India.

If we peruse the Upanishads or various Puranas (Hindu mythological texts), then we will find that mother earth has been represented as cow or Gau mata/mother cow. When the earth was polluted by the demons in the ancient time, and it became intolerable for the humans to continue their existence, mother earth represented herself as cow and went to the supreme lord and sought help, to save her and her sons and daughters. So, this is another reason for considering cows as sacred.