Page 1 of 5 12345 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 50

Thread: Hinduism - Other forms of worship

  1. #1
    Join Date
    July 2012
    Age
    52
    Posts
    2,088
    Rep Power
    2640

    Hinduism - Other forms of worship

    While the priestly class is proud of veda recitation, daily sadhana comprising usually of recitation of various slokas, performance of various rituals such as tarpana to pitrus or one's diseased ancestors, observance of various fasts and festivals, the non-Brahmin class mostly comprising of lower income group offers the following 'tremendous' sadhana:

    1. Walking on hot coal - 'Thee midi' meaning 'walk on fire' - offered to various Ammans such as Mariamman, Angalamman, Petchiamman.

    2. Piercing of Vel - Offered mainly to Murugan, it comprises of piercing various body parts, mainly the mouth area and the back with numerous needles and carrying a 'Kavadi' - a Palenquin-like structure usually made of wood and the devotees with such a kavadi and pierced needles go on procession before Murugan temple.

    3. Mayana Kollai - From Wiki:
    This was a main function celebrated for Angalamman.The major function celebrated for her is the "Mayana Kollai" celebrated in the Tamil month of Maasi that means in the English month of February and March. It consists of Animal sacrifice of goats and chickens for her. The functions falls on a new moon day of the Tamil month Maasi (Maasi Amavasya)and the day before the new moon day is Maha sivaratri which is a main function contributed for Lord Shiva.In Malaiyanoor it is celebrated for ten days and Angalaamman was decorated in different forms and she was taken in chariot in the streets of Malaiyanoor.
    People go on procession to the graveyard, cook food there and offer it to the deities. Collect ashes from the cremation ground and smear it on the body - next, they also do the inhumane act of biting live chickens, tender goats on their throats and walk with the dead animal still on their mouth back to the temple.

    4. Adi Pradakshinam with namaskara for Shiva: Offered around Shiva temples, this includes miles of distance walked in a very slow pace, such as placing the next foot where the previous foot ends and taking a namaskara each step across the way until the entire temple and its tenanting mountain are all completely circumambulated.

    5. Head shave with body pradakshinam: Offered at various temples, one of the foremost being Tirupathi, the devotees - men, women and children alike all give up their hair and lie down on the floor and go in circles around the temple in designated pathways.

    Last edited by satay; 02 February 2013 at 03:40 PM.
    jai hanuman gyan gun sagar jai kapis tihu lok ujagar

  2. #2

    Re: Worship of the non-Brahmins

    Quote Originally Posted by Viraja View Post
    While the priestly class is proud of veda recitation, daily sadhana comprising usually of recitation of various slokas, performance of various rituals such as tarpana to pitrus or one's diseased ancestors, observance of various fasts and festivals...
    Pranams,

    I have to ask, was it really necessary to start a posting of this kind with a jibe against brahmins? What purpose does this serve? These days I find it an encouraging thing to actually find brahmins who do such things, as opposed to accepting other professions and forgetting their spiritual life. India has suffered enough under so much unjustified, anti-brahmin sentiment. It needlessly colors peoples attitudes in a very negative way and is not conducive to good spiritual practices. Most genuine brahmins that I meet these days have little to be "proud" of. They are an oft-villified and neglected community, reduced to begging for scraps. It's truly heart-breaking to see their plight.
    Philosoraptor

    "Wise men speak because they have something to say. Fools speak because they have to say something." - Plato

  3. #3
    Join Date
    July 2010
    Location
    The Holy Land - Bharat
    Posts
    2,842
    Rep Power
    5499

    Re: Worship of the non-Brahmins

    Namaste,

    Deleted as irrelevant.

    Pranam.
    Last edited by Believer; 31 January 2013 at 01:50 PM.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    April 2012
    Location
    Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
    Age
    32
    Posts
    348
    Rep Power
    586

    Re: Worship of the non-Brahmins

    Vannakkam


    Well Aspirant/Viraja, with all due respect, what is the point of this thread?

    You could have called it Thaipusam penance and rituals. It's not worship, but showing penance.

    The tone of your post sounds condescending and hints of a slight contempt. It's like criticising in a sneering way. I understand how you feel. You're probably thinking, and have always thought along these lines, "Oh how high and mighty and perfect we Brahmins used to be, hmmm... look at our situation now, our children are not interested in priestly duties and proud of veda recitation anymore, even untouchables are doing better than us, all because of that dumb, stupid, good-for-nothing Mandal Commission. I will not live in India anymore!"

    Now let me highlight the situation for you, though you might "act" all innocent and unfamiliar.

    First of all, I am not anti-Brahmin. In fact, generations of my family/clan have always strictly hired only pure Brahmin priests with good pedigree/sampradaya for all our rituals. They add a touch of quality and completeness compared to non-Brahmin "newbie-wannabies". Therefore, only Brahmins are strictly hired for our prayers.

    I belong to the aristocratic landed gentry, "old-money", so I perfectly understand how you feel when imagining piercing and walking on hot coal. And my clan is probably the highest-income group per capita compared to all other races in Malaysia. Not to mention those who migrated to Europe, US and Canada from our ancestral region. Being staunch Saiva Siddhantins, and upholders of "high culture", we are alien to the fire-walking and piercing rituals too. That is why you should never, ever group all non-Brahmins into the same group. There are many, many levels, Aspirant/Viraja. There are many non-Brahmin groups who do not and will never do the rituals/penance you mentioned of.

    Some of those you mentioned of are completely unheard of to me here in Malaysia, like walking in procession to the cremation ground to smear ash on their bodies? I'm sure lots more peculiar stuff are going on in India.


    But let me ask you, first, what's happening to the younger generation of Brahmins today? Are they enjoying their priestly duty? Do you think they are proud of being Brahmin? Let alone memorising, preserving and being proud of the vedas?

    And not all non-Brahmins belong to the lower income group. You mentioned "mostly", but even that does not do enough justice because most Brahmins are the lower income group today. Don't tell me you're not aware of this fact? Those who could afford to go overseas went and refuse to work for the Indian Government, like the many I know in Malaysia. But, what about those stuck in India? They are going lower, and lower. Not rising nor maintaining their high-income and superior status. In fact, even untouchables are trampling on them. I don't like what's going on myself but I have to make you realise. They were the former leaders of the country, and the former rich. But they can't seem to maintain that status anymore.

    Now, on top of that, while the Brahmin kids are getting out of touch with their "Brahminess" and desire professional jobs, we have a whole new class of untouchable newbie-wannabies who aspire to become Brahmin priests. And you won't believe it, but most are already successful in making others think greatly of them. It's a pathetic situation already, Aspirant/Viraja. I'm just telling you, not intending to put Brahmins down.

    While most Brahmin priests are already fighting with each other to get into this position and that, you have untouchables, that comprise about 60% to 70% of Malaysian Indians. These are the descendants of labourers brought over during the British Colonial rule. Some are becoming priests today. In all their dislike towards Brahmins, they aspire to be Brahmins themselves. Of course those who belong to the upper castes here know the difference. But those in between? The middle classes? They feel all are the same and wouldn't mind hiring untouchable priests in place of proper, good old-fashioned Brahmin priests. And I'm very sure these untouchable priests would even go as far as to have upanayanam for their sons to change their family background. LOL. Strange isn't it?

    They make use of Brahmin dumbness of not managing temples properly by bringing, actually inviting people to their own temples. It's disgusting to see. And the Brahmins seem oblivious to this. The son of a famous Brahmin priest here even converted to Islam to marry his Malay Muslim girlfriend. It's quite sad. So the very low-income group which you're condemning now Aspirant/Viraja, is the very group that are aspiring towards replacing Brahmins.

    The situation is becoming reversed and irreversible. As for the priestly class being proud of veda recitation and all that, be proud of it while you still can. It's going to disappear in the priestly classes in the next few generations. And then, it is the very people who are offering the "tremendous" sadhana as you mentioned, who will take on priestly jobs to erase their untouchable backgrounds.


    PS: Didn't mean to offend anyone, just exposing Aspirant/Viraja to the bigger picture of what's going on.



    Aum Namah Shivaya

  5. #5
    Join Date
    January 2010
    Location
    tadvishno paramam padam
    Age
    38
    Posts
    2,168
    Rep Power
    2547

    Re: Worship of the non-Brahmins

    This type of tapas is tamasic in nature.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    February 2012
    Posts
    1,525
    Rep Power
    2741

    Re: Worship of the non-Brahmins

    Namaste Viraja

    Actually, I do not want to “pile it on” (add more criticism, I think your feelings might be hurt at this juncture), but I was also confused by your posting. I am not a Brahmin, and in fact when I read your posting I did not read the responses, and upon initial reading I had exactly the opposite but uncomfortable reaction – my initial thought was that you were “making fun” or belittling those who are not Brahmins as being stupid, who perform backward or “simpleton” acts such as penance (to Muruga or otherwise) and that the Brahmins are the ones who do not engage in such acts.

    So this disturbed me, because in my opinion we see even Gods, Devas and Devi, we see saints and mystics, we see Brahmins and ascetics, we see even Demons and Rakshasas, and even animals and even ghost bhutas and all sorts of beings, souls, humans, etc., performing great austerities and penances of all sorts and flavors and not just the “poor” and those who are not as educated perhaps as others.

    I respect Hinduism and all the members of the Great Family, it does not matter to me their “status”, since I was not “born” (but became or was taken by Ganesha when a child) Hindu, I also am very keen on having associates who were born Hindu, frankly it is very exciting for me to associate with all of them, and of course to me associating with devotees if they be born Hindu or taken by Devas and Devi to be Hindu later in life, I want to associate with all the devotees. Association is very important.

    One of the reasons that I thought you were “making fun” of the devotees who do penance is, because the last and most recent response of yours in the “No festivals for Goddess Gayatri Devi?” thread made me think your husband is Brahmin and you were putting down others who do penance and austerities such as you described in this post. But then I read the responses in this new thread, and some perhaps were thinking you were saying exactly 100% degrees the other way around as if those who are not Brahmins do the greatest austerities while the Brahmins only do chanting of mantras and pujas and such in the temples which might be “less than great”.

    Now, frankly at this point I have no idea what was the point of your new thread. Perhaps it was neither of what we might be thinking, neither making fun of those who are not Brahmin and do such penances, nor critical of those who are Brahmin and such. Perhaps it was only a case of a misconstruction of your English sentences – God knows, I savage and misapply Hindi and my English is not as good (“Kings English”) as many I know who came from India.

    In regards to Brahmins, all Brahmins are humbly requested to please come to the United States and be pujaris in Temples so that people such as myself have more temples to visit since I live and love for temples. You will see, that just as the priestly class traveled to South East Asia, Asia and other areas of the world where Temples came to fruit, so it can be here in the USA. Please come, you do not have to do “white collar” jobs, but do “white dhoti” jobs instead (!). You will be successful.

    In regards to austerities and penance, I have seen this in Hinduism, in many forms. I am sometimes haunted by the vision of two sandals next to the shore of a holy river. Why? A long time ago I had a conversation with an ISKCON devotee who was well known all over the world and someone of importance. I asked, “what happened to (I will leave the name anonymous)?”. He told me that after something Prabhupad said to this devotee (who was famous in his own way), the devotee who was in India then left for the Jamuna. He said they came soon later to the place, and there were the sandals on the shore of the river. He was gone. So I was told, someone also at the river saw him walk into the Jamuna until the water went over his head. And he did not turn around, nor come back.

    I do not know if this is true, but I suspect it is. I do not know if this was right or wrong in what he did. Some claim much later that they saw in a vision he had attained some sort of siddha and just left the world. Or perhaps this was some form of austerity or penance. I simply do not know.

    But I will never make fun of such.
    By the way, have you ever participated in any Kavadi or other such ceremony or penance? I would be very interested in hearing your experience if so, and the feelings or sentiment, or even communion, that may have happened.

    Om Namah Sivaya

  7. #7
    Join Date
    July 2012
    Age
    52
    Posts
    2,088
    Rep Power
    2640

    Re: Worship of the non-Brahmins

    Namaste Philosoraptor, Believer ji, Equinox, ShivaFan ji.

    I was just comparing the 2 different types of sadhanas. One well known but the other one, which very, very low income group, such as popularly known as 'servant-class' in India is doing, the sadhana of whom is NOT well known. My initial statement was to reflect this 'unknown' factor in the sadhanas of our very, very poor. Being a Brahmin myself, who is given to daily sadhana of reciting stotras as my only means of doing any sadhana at all, my intention here was not to put down on Brahmin sadhana. I find it difficult to express, but I actually find the sadhana of these very low income groups even more difficult than Brahmin's sadhana of austerities, and felt an urge to praise them for such! (Except the mayana-kollai ofcourse!). As Brahmins mostly doing White collar jobs (or to say it precisely, never reduced to being servant class), we do less-burdensome jobs but imagine these people - they do jobs that involve rigourous labour throughout the day and then they do this kind of extraordinary sadhanas! Something we Brahmins should really recognize them for, but we rarely do.

    I am also aware of the plight of Brahmins in India, we don't even get jobs fairly however qualified we are and such, my intention was not to put down on Brahmins, but to 'highlight' the sadhana of the very, very poor.

    I'm sorry if my wordings were poor and hurt anyone, didn't mean to. I actually hoped a response that would come back to greet me in recognizing the sadhana of these overly-poor!

    I haven't done any of these sadhana, ShivaFanji, you asked me if I did 'vel' myself, no, I have never done it, and I do not think, I will be able to bear the pain and do it ever! That is why, I thought of them recognizing them in this post!

    They say 'moksha' is for everyone and I truly believe it after seeing the sadhana of these people - even one of our Brahmins, Sri Vyasaraya Theertha is said to have climbed the mountain of Tirumala entirely through his knees crawling up because he didn't want to step his foot on the great mountain and I have to say, I feel the same degree of astonishment in the sadhana of this very poor group of people in accomplishing the same!

    I thank everyone for replies.

    Regards,

    Viraja
    Last edited by Viraja; 30 January 2013 at 07:52 AM.
    jai hanuman gyan gun sagar jai kapis tihu lok ujagar

  8. #8
    Join Date
    July 2012
    Age
    59
    Posts
    639
    Rep Power
    0

    Re: Worship of the non-Brahmins

    Quote Originally Posted by Viraja View Post
    While the priestly class is proud of veda recitation, daily sadhana comprising usually of recitation of various slokas, performance of various rituals such as tarpana to pitrus or one's diseased ancestors, observance of various fasts and festivals, the non-Brahmin class mostly comprising of lower income group offers the following 'tremendous' sadhana:

    1. Walking on hot coal - 'Thee midi' meaning 'walk on fire' - offered to various Ammans such as Mariamman, Angalamman, Petchiamman.

    2. Piercing of Vel - Offered mainly to Murugan, it comprises of piercing various body parts, mainly the mouth area and the back with numerous needles and carrying a 'Kavadi' - a Palenquin-like structure usually made of wood and the devotees with such a kavadi and pierced needles go on procession before Murugan temple.

    3. Mayana Kollai - From Wiki:

    People go on procession to the graveyard, cook food there and offer it to the deities. Collect ashes from the cremation ground and smear it on the body - next, they also do the inhumane act of biting live chickens, tender goats on their throats and walk with the dead animal still on their mouth back to the temple.

    4. Adi Pradakshinam with namaskara for Shiva: Offered around Shiva temples, this includes miles of distance walked in a very slow pace, such as placing the next foot where the previous foot ends and taking a namaskara each step across the way until the entire temple and its tenanting mountain are all completely circumambulated.

    5. Head shave with body pradakshinam: Offered at various temples, one of the foremost being Tirupathi, the devotees - men, women and children alike all give up their hair and lie down on the floor and go in circles around the temple in designated pathways.

    Namaste and pranams.

    When I was just a young girl of ten on holidays with my family in Malaysia, I became separated from them during a Thaipusam festival and witnessed the 'Piercing of the Vel' firsthand.

    I followed the procession back to the temple and managed to sneak inside and spy...there was no blood...no pain. It defied everything I knew about how human bodies worked. Whilst in that temple, I saw my very first picture of Lord Shiva and just stood there transfixed (and history was born) until a priest/man saw me and took me to the police station where I was reunited with my parents.

    I have also seen fire walking in Bali twice.

    My connection with Lord Shiva started in this way.

    Aum Namah Shivaya

  9. #9
    Join Date
    July 2012
    Age
    52
    Posts
    2,088
    Rep Power
    2640

    Re: Worship of the non-Brahmins

    Sahasranama,

    I do not think god evaluates the sadhana as 'tamasic' in these cases - they are not hurting anybody and are spending hard physical labour sincerely in worship of their god! Such hard toil will be rewarded, IMO.
    jai hanuman gyan gun sagar jai kapis tihu lok ujagar

  10. #10
    Join Date
    July 2012
    Age
    52
    Posts
    2,088
    Rep Power
    2640

    Re: Worship of the non-Brahmins

    Quote Originally Posted by Equinox View Post
    The situation is becoming reversed and irreversible. As for the priestly class being proud of veda recitation and all that, be proud of it while you still can. It's going to disappear in the priestly classes in the next few generations. And then, it is the very people who are offering the "tremendous" sadhana as you mentioned, who will take on priestly jobs to erase their untouchable backgrounds.
    Yes, it is very true, what you have written. Very wisely written!

    As I already said, it was just an attempt on my part to 'bring to light' what in my perception served as a 'more difficult sadhana' but yet 'remains unknown/unrecognized' -- I could have chosen better phrasing but I just put down what occured to me first.

    I am, at this point, motivated to edit my first posting to remove the sadhana of our priestly class statement, but I am just retaining it so that readers will have a context of what the replies are all about.
    jai hanuman gyan gun sagar jai kapis tihu lok ujagar

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Similar Threads

  1. Periyar Ramasami
    By Believer in forum Politics - Current Issues
    Replies: 10
    Last Post: 13 July 2013, 04:27 PM
  2. Replies: 104
    Last Post: 29 January 2013, 08:38 AM
  3. Replies: 1
    Last Post: 31 July 2009, 02:18 AM
  4. What is metaphoric and literal?
    By Spiritualseeker in forum Scriptures
    Replies: 27
    Last Post: 13 June 2009, 10:31 PM
  5. Idol worshipping
    By vcindiana in forum God in Hindu Dharma
    Replies: 114
    Last Post: 24 July 2007, 11:39 AM

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •