Upset Hindus have urged luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton to immediately withdraw its recently launched yoga mat made from cowhide leather, calling it highly inappropriate.
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada, said that this Louis Vuitton yoga mat seemed ridiculing and offending two serious concepts of Hinduism—cow and yoga—and was hugely insensitive to Hindu feelings.
Scenario of yoga (profound, sacred and ancient discipline; introduced and nourished by Hinduism) being performed on a mat made from a killed cow (the seat of many deities, which was sacred and had long been venerated in Hinduism) was painful to Hindu sentiments; Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, said.
Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), whose “Code of Conduct” included “Acting Responsibly and with Social Awareness” should not be in the business of religious appropriation, sacrilege, mocking serious spiritual practices and ridiculing entire communities Rajan Zed noted.
Zed also urged LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault; Louis Vuitton CEO Michael Burke and Louis Vuitton Executive Vice President Delphine Arnault to offer a formal apology and be serious about the LVMH vision of “ethical responsibility.”
Yoga, which found reference in the world’s oldest extant scripture Rig-Veda and other early Hindu texts, is considered union with God, one of the six systems of Hindu philosophy, and meant for transforming consciousness and purification of the Self and attaining liberation. It involved withdrawal and its objective was the state of blissful liberation, Zed pointed out.
Description of this beige mat (priced at $2,390 and made with cowhide leather) at the company website claimed: “Meditative stretching takes on a sleek bent with the Louis Vuitton yoga mat.”
