mdzo rgod

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མཛོ་རྒོད
wild cattle [JV]

wild/ untamed mdzo [IW]

(sman) Gayal ? (Bos frontalis)
Synonyms : sri ma ra, ba lang nog can, lkog shal can ('Jam-dpal)

mdzo rgod ni/ sri ma ra/ ba lang nog can/ lkog shal can zer/ mdo nas 'byung ba'i ri'i mdzo ste/ bshad rgyud zas le'ur/ ri dwags che ba'i rigs su bshad// (mDzes mtshar mig rgyan, print p 235) Illustrations : Jam-dpal (print p 235) mdzo rgod

Illustrations : 'Jam-dpal (print p 235) mdzo rgod

'Wild Dzo' cannot be taken literally. As a crossbreed of which only the cows are fertile, but the bulls sterile, it can hardly exist as or build up a wild population.
The synonym sri ma ra refers to an animal included in the groupe Ānupamṛga ('who live in marshy land'), sub-group Kūlacara (‘shore-dwellers’). Monier-Williams gives 'a kind of animal frequenting damp places, ([according to] to some the ‘Bos Grunniens’ or ‘a young deer’)' (wisdomlib.org).
The synonym ba lang nog can indicates a 'humped cattle', and 'Jam-dpal qualifies it further as a 'mountain Dzo'.

The wild Gaur (Bos gaurus) is nowadays largely confined to evergreen and moist deciduous forests of hilly terrain below an elevation of 1,500 to 1,800 m. It is the largest species of the bovine groupe, massive, with a prominent ridge on the back and curved horns remining those of water buffalos.
The Gayal or Mithun (Bos frontalis), smaller than the Gaur, but still a large cattle, is either a domesticated Gaur, or descends matrilineally from Gaur, Zebu and cattle. Domesticated possibly since the Indus Valley culture, it is present today from NE India, Bangladesh, Myanmar to SE China. It is rarely milked or used to plough, but is rather a status symbol of social importance. Managed in fenced forest tracts in a semi-domesticated way, it is used as a sacrificial animal and for the purpose of cross breeding with other bovids. As for the mdzo (yak x cow hybrid), hybrids of Gayal and cattle give fertile cows, but sterile bulls. It is the male parent of ba men, which 'Jam-dpal describes in the notice of ma he. Here he depicts the horn of a water buffalo and that of a ba men, the latter recalling those of gayals. https://academic.oup.com/mspecies/article/50/959/34/5075367?login=false
Johannes Schmidt (talk) 13:35, 18 February 2024 (EST)