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Re: REQUEST: Marriage Rites In Hindi?
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Subject: Re: REQUEST: Marriage Rites In Hindi?
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From: "Jaldhar H. Vyas" <jaldhar@braincells.com>
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Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 03:20:17 GMT
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Apparently-To: soc-religion-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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Newsgroups: soc.religion.hindu
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Organization: Consolidated Braincells Inc.
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References: <ghenDxuA7o.76@netcom.com> <ghenDy0Dzp.M3v@netcom.com> <ghenDy7Ex1.8xL@netcom.com>
> The issue arose because I consider myself to be an atheist though born
> and brought up in a Hindu family. The person I intend to marry (she is
Hindu)
> is not too enthusiastic about the idea of a registered/court marriage
and
> would like something resembling a conventional Hindu marriage.
>
Calling yourself an atheist doesn't really explain a lot to me. I'd have
more of an idea of who you are (and thus the answer to your questions if I
knew your background, what kind of tradition you were from. For instance
merely not worshipping God wouldn't neccessarily make you an outsider to
me but eating with your left hand would. If you want a conventional
wedding ceremony, that's not being irreligious in my book. I put it to
you, you are not an atheist. Not in the sense I imagine the word to mean
and not I think in the sense you imagine it to mean. I put it to you your
labeling yourself as an atheist is due to the cognitive dissonance of
trying to apply American concepts of religion and what it means to be
religious to a completely different belief system.
I know i'm off on a tangent here but as a man who is rigorously orthodox
in both action and belief yet understands English and is fully assimilated
into Aerican culture, I often come across people who say "I'm not
religious but..." I think it's an interesting phenomenon and one that's
worth exploring.
> The only scenario in which that appears acceptable to me is if I can at
least
> understand the whole ritual, which will be impossible if it is going
> to be in Sanskrit, as my knowledge of it consists of the rather poor
> vestegial remains of a couple of years of Sanskrit in primary school.
>
You already know the meaning. You are going through the ceremony to
please your wife. That's the meaning for you. Wanting to know the
literal meaning of the words is a rather fundamentalist notion wouldn't
you say? :-)
> Just as a matter of self-education, which are the scriptures from which
> the Shlokas recited in Hindu weddings are taken? Is it a matter of
discretion
> of the Pandit or are there any specific verses prescribed in the Vedas?
The marriage ceremony is based on the Grhya sutras which are ritual
manuals, one of which is attached to each recension of the Vedas. Amongst
Brahmans typically the rites follow the Vedic injunctions pretty closely.
Amongst other castes there is less Vedic content. There are also things
from the Puranas in there. Different castes and areas and sects and
families have their own traditions which are no less valid. Hence it is
very difficult to generalize about a generic "Hindu wedding."
> (I believe that one of the Vedas or one section of a Veda deals
> solely with ritualistic aspects of the Hindu religion).
Nearly all of the Vedas except the Upanishads deal with rituals. However
for most people who are described as Hindus today, there is only a tenuous
connection between those rituals and the religion they actually practice.
For us tradition as a whole is our "holy book" not just the Vedas. They
are the fountainhead but much came afterwards of equal importance.
This is why Dayanands' "back to the Vedas" philosophy was ultimately a
failure and has degenerated into the form it takes today. Rather than
being seen as more religious, his sweeping dismissal of everything that
was produced between the Vedas and the present day struck the public as
being inauthentic and insincere.
Do Arya Samaj
> weddings make any significant departures from the conventional Shlokas?
>
In theory they should. After all, the goal was to "purify" religion of
"medieval rubbish." But as I said before I don't think todays Arya
Samajis pay more than lip service to all that. Certainly the two or three
Arya Samaj weddings I've seen didn't seem ritually much different from the
tradition Gujarati style. Just cheaper, simpler and rather more dull.
--
Jaldhar H. Vyas [jaldhar@braincells.com] o- beable .-_|\
Consolidated Braincells Inc. / \
http://www.braincells.com/jaldhar/ Perth Amboy-> *.--._/
"Witty quote" - Dead Guy finger me for PGP key v McQ!
