kamadhenu-cow
Ancient queens and princesses used to keep cranes as pet birds on their palace lakes, and they also developed a strong personal bondage with them. It is also believed, that few of the wives of Lord Krishna, kept Cranes as pet birds in their palaces, and they are also accustomed to recite the name “KRISHNA”, “KRISHNA”, whenever Lord Krishna visits their place. Though it is prohibited to hunt birds like cranes, still some people used to hunt cranes, by giving some sort of mild poison mixed with rice, and after they consumes it, it would get fainted on the floor. During that time, the people would cut it, removes the flesh from its body, cook it and would consume it, by thinking that the flesh of the crane would give more strength to their body.
Since snails represents similar to the conch shell, the holy Shanku of Lord Vishnu, it is considered as a worshipful creature. Snails have got lot of religious significance in Hinduism, snails exists even before the Vedic period, and keeping the Holy object Shanku in our home would bring lot of good fortunes in our life. We can also provide milk and juices to the snails, so that they would slowly suck it with their small mouth.
Next to the Sudarshana Chakra, the divine Shanku is considered as a sacred object of Lord Vishnu. Lord Krishna had blown the Shanku, during the time of Kurukshetra war, in order to inform to the participants of the war, that he is ready for the war. Ancient kings used to keep a sacred conch on their puja room, and used to worship it sincerely, by considering it similar to their beloved deity Lord Vishnu. Still now we can find in most of puja rooms of the Hindus, a holy conch shell, which would be kept for worship. Kings like Vikramaditya, Krishnadevaraya, Prahalada and Dhruva used to worship the holy conch shell in their palaces.
Though snails are considered as a slow moving creature, yet they contain high intelligence and memory powers. Those who protect and preserve snails in their homes by providing proper food items would get the blessings of Lord Vishnu, as well as from his staunch devotees like Prahalada, Vibhishana and Dhruva. Some types of snails would live only in the ocean, and they are called as Sea snails. Snails also lives in the land, and some children would be very much interested to break the shell of the snail using stones and other hard objects, but, that act is considered as a bad one.
Some people also break the shell of the snail and would consume its flesh by considering it as good to their body, but instead of killing the small creature, we can get a healthy body by consuming vegetarian diet consisting of greens, fruits and fresh vegetables. We must always remember one ancient golden proverb, and that is, “OUR LIFE WOULD FAIL, ONCE IF WE KILL SNAIL”. Hence by keeping the above GOLDEN proverb in our mind, let us protect the wonderful creature from destruction, by giving our helping hand to them.