KIRAN ATMA: Ashaucha

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Hinduism - What Are Village Deities?

According to popular Hindu tradition, the universe has 330 million gods.

The richness of this mythic imagination can be seen in the composition of the Hindu pantheon, in which hundreds of major and minor deities have been given form, identity, and mythic history.

Yet aside from these deities, who have been given an identifiable form, there are also a host of village deities found throughout India.

In most cases, the village deity is exactly that—the deity who protects, watches over, and acts as a divine over seer for a particular village or locale.

One of their most common functions is to protect the village from disease, either of people or livestock, and to provide remedies when disease strikes.

They are also the guardians of the village, defending it from ghosts and unseen powers, as well as protecting the villagers from danger and misfortune.

The authority of these deities is generally quite limited—in most cases, it does not extend beyond the village itself.

In most cases, village deities have no well defined mythic history, form, or personality.

At times they will have a temple dedicated to them, but in other cases the village deity is believed to be associated with a particular tree or is represented by a post in the village square.

Village deities are usually nonvegetarian, demanding animal sacrifices and offerings of blood in exchange for their services.

Relationships with these deities are highly pragmatic—the villagers make offerings, and the deities protect, but beyond these offerings there is usually little organized worship.

If these deities have any organized priesthood, it is almost always non-brahmin because the impurity (ashaucha) generated by animal sacrifices would be unacceptable to brahmins.

These priesthoods are intermediaries between the deity and the villagers, usually communicating with the deities through dreams or possession.

In this way the deities’ wishes become known, and problems or concerns can find their solution.

In some cases, local deities have gained greater stature and have been assimilated into the pantheon.

For female deities, this process is fairly simple, since they can be brought into the pantheon by claiming that their temples are one of the Shakti Pithas, a network of sites sacred to the Goddess that spreads throughout the subcontinent.

Each Shakti Pitha marks the site where a body part of the dismembered goddess Sati fell to earth, taking form there as a different goddess; all these individual goddesses are thus seen as manifestations of a single great Goddess.

Male deities are more typically incorporated into the pantheon as incarnations of the deity Vishnu, and three major instances of the former are Jagannath, Vithoba, and Venkateshvara.

Village deities are less usually considered to be avatars of the god Shiva, although this has occurred with Khandoba, an important regional deity in the state of Maharashtra.

Hinduism - What Is Vibhuti?

Vibhuti is a Sanskrit word that means “power”.

Sacred ash with which worshippers of the deity Shiva (bhakta) brand their bodies, generally in three horizontal lines (tripundra).

The three lines are said to represent the three prongs of Shiva's trident in one interpretation, and Shiva's third eye in another.

In a variety of circumstances, ash is linked with Shiva.

On the one hand, he is said to smear ashes from the cremation ground all over his body, indicating his disregard for all conventional distinctions between purity and impurity (ashaucha); the ash could also represent Shiva's destruction of Kama, the god of love, who is reduced to ash by Shiva's third eye.

Vibhuti was traditionally manufactured from wood ash filtered through cloth until it was as fine as talcum powder.

This is still done today, especially by ascetics who utilize the ash from a dhuni, or smoldering ascetic fire, which is considered to give the ash a holy nature; in contemporary times, vibhuti is sold in religious supply shops.

~Kiran Atma

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Hinduism - How Prevalent Is Vegetarianism In Hindu Society?

Vegetarianism is an ageless and long enduring dietary practice that carries extremely high status among Hindu people, probably because of its associations with strict brahmin practice; even people who are nonvegetarian themselves will commonly think of a vegetarian diet as “purer.”

It may have become more prominent and mainstream under certain monarchs over the past few millennia but has certainly taken shape as a voluntary practice with philosophical undertones that define Hinduism.

Strict vegetarians eat no flesh or eggs, but milk and milk products are always eaten and are considered pure and health-giving, probably because they come from the cow.

Those people who keep the strictest diets will also often refrain from onions and garlic, which are considered to excite the passions.

This religious commitment to vegetarianism by a certain part of the population, and the general status given to “pure” vegetarian food, are both responsible for the great variety of vegetarian cooking found in Indian culture.

Despite the higher status given to a vegetarian diet, most modern Hindus are not vegetarian—a recent poll of urban Hindus found that only about 25 per cent were pure vegetarian, although the number may be higher in villages, which tend to be more traditional.

~Kiran Atma

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Hinduism - What Is The Ritual Impurity And Stigma Surrounding Menstruation In Hindu Societies?

All body secretions are regarded a source of ritual impurity in traditional Hindu culture (ashaucha).

During their menstrual cycles, women are regarded ritually unclean, and menstrual fluid is considered a cause of impurity.

Menstruation, on the other hand, is seen as a sign of good fortune since it signifies a woman's reproductive abilities.

The ceremonial observances and taboos for menstruating women range greatly between socioeconomic groupings.

Women are subject to just a few restrictions in certain organizations, such as a prohibition on visiting temples during that period.

Women are required to limit themselves to certain areas of the home and abstain from ordinary tasks such as cooking in other groups.

Although such a rigid practice may seem restrictive, many women valued this time off as a monthly break from their daily responsibilities, which would be handled by the other women in the family.

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Hinduism - What Is Maranashaucha?

Maranashaucha is a term used to describe death-induced ritual impurity (ashaucha) (marana).

Hair, spittle, pus, blood, and other biological effluvia are all considered causes of impurity, but a corpse is the most unclean of them.

Any death triggers the most virulent impurity, which affects the whole family.

This irrationality must be carefully restrained and managed via the funeral ceremonies for the sake of the family's safety (antyeshthi samskara).

The substantial ceremonial difference between birth and death may be seen here.

Although birth introduces impurity (sutakashaucha) to the family due to the body products associated with it, this impurity is seen as less violent since the birth of a child is an auspicious and life-affirming occurrence.

Death, on the other hand, is said to bring ill luck, so the family must not only deal with the impurity, but also with the inauspiciousness brought on by the death.

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Hinduism - How Is Leather Perceived By Orthodox Hindus In The Conext Of Ritual Purity/Pollution?

Because it is the result of a dead animal, many orthodox Hindus consider it filthy.

However, since the feet are considered the lowest and most unclean part of the body, they feel that leather is an ideal material for shoes.

As a result, many individuals put on their shoes by slipping their feet into them without using their hands, avoiding touching the leather with their palms.

Leather's connections with ritual impurity (ashaucha) make it unsuitable for other types of clothing—clothing that would be troublesome in the hot Indian climate—though it is now sometimes used for purses and briefcases.

People who didn't want to wear leather used wooden clogs instead; nowadays, plastic, rubber, and canvas are other alternatives.

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Hinduism - What Is Jati In A Hindu Society?

Jati means “birth” in Sanskrit. In Indian culture, the term Jati broadly represents a traditional social grouping.

There were hundreds of these groupings, which were deemed exogamous because there were stringent taboos against marrying outside one's jati—people from various jatis were seen as separate "species" of humans.

The traditional occupation of the Jatis, which they and they alone had the right to practice, was frequently used to designate the subgroup.

The jatis were ordered in society in hierarchical order based on the perceived purity or impurity (ashaucha) of their jobs, and this hierarchy provided the foundation for the caste system, a traditional Hindu social structure.

~ Kiran Atma

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Hinduism - What Is Ritual Impurity?

Ritual Impurity is referred to as Ashaucha in Sanskrit.

Rules Of purity and impurity delineates the causes of ritual pollution and lack of sanctity that impede worship.

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Hinduism - What Is Inauspiciousness Or Ashaucha In The Practice Of Hindu Rituals?

This notion relates to occurrences or circumstances that, at their core, obstruct or threaten life, prosperity, or general well-being.

Auspiciousness and inauspiciousness, like purity and impurity (ashaucha), are basic concepts in Hindu life.

A lot of variables may contribute to unfavorable circumstances.

In other cases, inauspiciousness may be found in the present moment—in a bad hour or day, in exceptional phenomena such as eclipses, or in astrological conjunctions that are fundamentally unfavorable.

In such "dangerous" periods, one's activities should be severely limited, with the exception of absolutely required tasks.

Certain normally harmless activities may become inauspicious when combined with certain periods, and such activities should be avoided during these times.

Inauspiciousness may also be caused by specific planetary alignments in one's natal horoscope, or by creating a house or structure in an inopportune location.

Inauspiciousness is seen as a physical entity that is created by particular circumstances and then attached to people, families, or bigger groups.

Some of these unlucky circumstances may be avoided by abstaining from certain actions at certain times, while others cannot be prevented, such as the inauspiciousness caused by eclipses or other astrological conjunctions.

Whereas impurity (ashaucha) may be eliminated or destroyed by purification, inauspiciousness can only be passed on from one person to the next, most often through presents (dana).

More information may be found in Gloria Goodwin Raheja's The Poison in the Gift, published in 1988, and David F. Pocock's "The Evil Eye," published in T. N. Madan's Religion in India, published in 1991.

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Hinduism - How Important Is Hygiene In Orthoprax Hindu Ritual And Religious Practices?

Orthoprax Hindus (that is, Hindus who stress correct religious practice) lay great stress on cleanliness of their bodies and their immediate environment.

Although to the outside eye this scrupulous attention would seem to indicate a concern for hygiene, these actions are performed primarily to protect and retain religious purity.

In many cases, concerns for hygiene and purity overlap, as in the pervasive practice of bathing (snana) and the regulations concerning bodily cleanliness.

Both of these simultaneously remove dirt and impurity (ashaucha), but in other cases these concerns clearly diverge.

One example of this divergence is the way that household refuse is often simply put out in the street—a practice that keeps the home pure and clean, but which fosters unhygienic conditions directly outside the home.

Another example of this disjunction can be seen in the traditional use of cow dung as a purifying substance, or the way that the Ganges River is always considered pure, even in its lower reaches where it is full of sewage and industrial effluents.

These examples clearly show that purity and hygiene are very different concepts and that, from a religious perspective, purity is by far the more important of the two.

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Hinduism And Hindu Theology - What Is Ashaucha?

The ritual impurity produced by contact with any source of pollution, which may take various forms, both physical and social, is referred to as Ashaucha.

Purity and impurity are theological concepts that are fundamentally distinct from cleanliness and dirtiness, which are hygienic concepts.

Cow dung, for example, is considered a clean material in traditional Hindu culture and is used to purify areas of land.

It's also essential to understand that impurity is a normal part of life—everyone goes to the toilet every day, for example—and that being impure has no moral implications.

Most body fluids are polluting, and any action that involves them, such as urine, feces, sexual activity, giving birth, or being born, makes one unclean.

Contact with persons or objects considered unclean, such as individuals of lower social standing, animals, any kind of common dirt, or even road dust, may contaminate one's body.

Social ties may also contribute to impurity.

Because of the body fluids involved, the impurity from delivery (sutakashaucha) clearly affects the mother and child, but it also affects all other members of the immediate household.

If a person has been exposed to anything harmful, the best treatment is to eliminate the source of pollution.

Bathing with flowing water is the most frequent method of purification, since it eliminates less virulent pollutants by transporting them away with the water's flow.

Bathing (snana) has the cleansing ability to serve as a precursor to many religious rites, one of which is meticulous cleanliness, both for the individual conducting the ritual and for the location where it is conducted.

A body is the most polluting material of all, which is one reason why corpses are cremated on the day of death.