[Assam] Much ado over nothing

[Mohan R. Palleti]

Chan,
Thank you for your email. I do not wish to stir a hornet's nest over these
controversial topics.
When I said Hinduism is not a religion. It is a set way of life that our
forefathers passed on to us. Notice that although the wedding mantras in
two Hundu marriages may be similar, the traditions are different. Broadly
we have similar practices, but at minor levels, it is different. So is the
ceremony performed during a death. What we follow is what was passed by
our ancestors. In doubt we take the Panda's help to perform rituals or a
pooja. If a Assamese panda on Hiboratri pooja will offer you Bhang as
prasad. That is not the same as in the South or North.... That’s a product
of culture and a way of life in Assam.

We all have heard that when we kill a cat, we have to do penance by
offering a golden cat to the panda. When you can not do this, you are
suppose to offer equivalent amount of salt.... Who made these rules? and
how come there is so much flexibilities...That is because we do not have
strict dogma's. Nobody is going to do a fatwa because you drew a cartoon
of Hanuman or couldn't perform an annual ritual in toto  by the book.
That’s the beauty of our way of life.

Christianity, Judaism, muslim religion all came much after the Hinduism
was evolved. So there is a point of reference of a prophet who passed the
word  of a God to whoever who wanted to believe that.
Whereas Hindu way of life evolved by the work of many philosophers,
writers, social reformers
.
The laws of Hinduism  (manusmriti) was written by Manu. Manu was supposed
to be a product of a manav and a danav. So they considered him not human.
In todays’s parlance he would be an offspring of two different cultures,
religion or sects.. (???) He was entrustedto write this code so that he
would be impartial to any castes. However impartial he might have been,
and whatever might have thought was the right thing at that time, who is
following those codes these days
?

Whatever we did not like we picked and threw them out!,  tough luck for
religions by the book, but  very convenient for our way of life. Buddha
did not like something, he formed his own religion. Mahavir Jain did not
like something, he formed his own religion, Sri Sankardeva did not like
something, he made his own way of life. Broadly we are all under one way
of life with the freedom to worship the way we want.

What you think are dogma’s are politically motivated stuffs. Some are deep
rooted cultural stuffs. Take it or leave it
.

I had read about an interesting story in a magazine way too many years ago
in Hyderabad where I lived after I left Assam in the early 70’s
.
Story goes that one family had a peculiar tradition. Whenever they had a
guest come to their house to visit them. They would first pick take some
food and put it in a thaali and go looking for a cat or cats in the
neighborhood to feed them first before feeding the guest.

After many generations somebody decided to find the origin of this
peculiar tradition. What he found was that their great great grandfather
had many cats in their house. Unless you feed them first, they would
create a lot of trouble around the dining area. This tradition was passed
down so automatically that although there are no more cats in the family
anymore, they were still feeding the neighborhood cats
..

Mohan Rao Palleti