When you go to the Deity room, you should change your cloth, because I do not know what things I have touched in the street, so better to change the cloth. And still better to cleanse, to take bath. That is the system. Anyway, to touch the stool of an animal makes one unclean—therefore one has to take bath or purify himself. That is the system. But the Veda says the stool of cow is purified. The stool of cow is purified.
Now, practically, in India they accept it, and it has been found by chemical examination that the cow dung contains all antiseptic property. That is a fact. One Dr. Ghoshal, he analyzed in his laboratory, "Why this Vedic injunction is the stool of cow, or cow dung, is pure?" So he analyzed, and he found it that the stool of cow, cow dung, is full of antiseptic properties. So this is called faith or theistic, to take the injunction of the scripture as it is, without any reformation. That is called āstikyam.
There is another example. Just like the Buddhism. Buddhism was originated in India. Lord Buddha was a Hindu, and he was a prince, and still, Buddhism was not accepted by the Indians. Why? Because the Buddhism decried the Vedas. Nindasi yajṣa-vidher ahaha śruti-jātaṁ (Śrī Daśāvatāra Stotra 7). Śruti means Veda. So āstikyam means to have full faith in the orders of the scripture. This is also one of the qualification of a brahmin. Jñānaṁ vijñānaṁ āstikyam brahmā-karma svabhāva-jaṁ (BG 18.42). These are the natural qualification of a brahmin.