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HINDU FAMILY R1TUAL
The minimum definition of ritual may he considered as the observable, though not always openly
observed, routine of worship. Such a routine, perhaps, is essential for any system of religious
belief to survive since it lays down certain organisational regulations and procedures to ensure its
endurance as a social institution; which, being thus ordained,
can be effortlessly performed while leaving the way clear for consideration of the more vital
issues of religious thought and philosophy Since, then, it is the performance of ritual that
manifests religion as a social fact, the routine of ritual will be influenced by co-existing norms
and practice, just as the religious beliefs of a society help to determine what is socially
acceptable within it.
It is possible, however, for ritual to acquire a much deeper relevance than its practical function as
a routine of worship would indicate. In many religions (and Hinduism is one of them), correct
performance of ritual procedures may be regarded as sufficient in itself to ensure fulfilment of
desires, or granting of blessings; ritual becomes not simply a
means of expressing a plea or a devotion, but a way of certainly securing benefits. Illustrative of
this are the Christian practice of paying for masses to be said for souls of the departed, a practice
somewhat similar in purpose to the (post-cremation) Sřaddha ceremonies of the Hindu, carried
out to improve the state and welfare of the departed
spirit; Christ’s insistence on ritual bathing for the cleansing of leprosy; the kissing of the walls of
the goddess Kali’s shrine in Calcutta by Hindu women desiring children, especially sons.
So complex and involved is the ritual of Hindu devotions that specific Brahmin (priestly) castes
are designated as performers of certain specific ritual acts: witness the priests of Yama, god of
death, funerary specialists, who attend the funeral pyres at the burning ghat in Benares; or the
household priests, who perform certain ceremonies at the private family altars of those for whom
they officiate; or the temple priests, whose duty is to attend on the images of the gods housed
therein, and perform the set ceremonies of worship. Such specialist duties are not
interchangeable, and those who perform them are hierarchically ranked according to their
function.
Significant is the extent to which a religion tends to regulate the social life of believers. All
religions have rituals, ceremonies, etc., necessary and vital to the social life of the societies to
which they are endemic, but some go far beyond, as with the Indian cast system, or Islamic law.
Hinduism is not highly organised ecclesiastically; the Brahmin priesthood, though hereditary, is
not organised into a unified and identically trained body, and no Brahmin is necessarily a priest.
Hinduism is not a congregational religion, unlike Islam, Christianity or Judaism, and the most
important rituals are individual, family, or cast group affairs,
which results in the considerable variation of individual expression in performance.
In contrast to the lack of systematically organised and centralised ecclesiastical institutions,
Hinduism has ordered and ritualised social life to an extreme degree. Certainly many social
practices now associated with Hinduism were non-religious in origin, but have been sanctioned
and affirmed by religion. The origins of a particular practice are unimportant for a consideration
of its effect - if Hindus have believed that a certain way of social behaviour is an expression of
religious teaching, then, to them, it is a part of religion, and therefore must be observed by a
devotee.
Hindu Rites of Passage
The rituals of Hinduism, as in other religions, differ according to type and importance. Some are
of a corporate nature, others individual; some are public, others private; some are obligatory,
others optional; some are of regular occurrence, others occasional.
The complete range of Hindu ritual observance is so complex and far-reaching that, for any
description to he meaningful, some selective procedure has to be adopted; therefore I have tried
to describe below a few rituals connected with the rites de passage, or ceremonies denoting
stages of life, common to high-caste Hindus. Obviously, in a
country of sub-continental size, like India, there are innumerable regional, sectarian, or
community variations in these rituals, so that details of ceremonies vary even when their
significance does not.
The rites de passage of all societies represent the ritually-performed socially-recognised passing
of an individual or a group of individuals from one stage of life to the next; such rituals mark the
abandonment of certain duties or activities appropriate to one stage of existence, following this
by a period of transition, training or adjustment before the
assumption of new responsibilities and actions consonant with the new status achieved, into
which an individual may be said then to be fully initiated.
The major Hindu rites de passage concern the three main events of existence — birth, marriage,
and death:
Birth rituals celebrate the arrival of a new member of the temporal family, and publicly
announce membership of it, and acceptance by it:
Marriage rituals publicly acknowledge that the new bride is now part of her husband and his
family, and that any offspring of the union are legitimate and have rights within the family;
Death rituals mark the departure of a member of the temporal family into another existence, and
are a time for members of the family to mark their relationship to the deceased and pay their
respects, and for his agnates to make their offerings for the benefit of the spirit.
Ceremonies connected with these three events are marked by physical gatherings-together of
family members, thus emphasising the corporateness of the group and its unity of action. The
parts played by family members in the rituals show the relative importance at different times of
males and females, maternal and paternal kin and so on.
Birth rituals actually begin during pregnancy, and take the form of rites calculated to ward off
the evil eve, protect the foetus and expectant mother, promote good health and, above all, to
encourage the birth of a son.
In the fifth month the rite of Raksäbandhana, or Binding of the Protective Thread, takes place.
This is a women’s ceremony, attended by women relatives of husband and wife, though a
propitious day is chosen by the family’s astrologer. The expectant mother is anointed with
turmeric and rice, then a bangle is tied around her wrist by her husband’s sister. Sometimes this
guard takes different forms: it may he a piece of cloth containing iron, cowrie shell and dust from
a cross-roads mixed with the film from an image of Hanuman, a god particularly noted for his
triumphs over demons.
Sometimes a ritual worship of the Mimosa Suma tree is carried out by the expectant mother in
the seventh month. In the seventh or eighth month the old Vedic rite of Sǐmanta, or Hair-parting,
should be performed: its purpose again being to bless and protect mother and child. This involves
worship of Rannã Devi, the wife of the sun, represented by two ‘brass jars ‘with coconuts (two,
since even numbers favour sons, odd numbers daughters). For each jar seven ‘lucky’ women ¹
are invited to the ceremony, making 14 (again an even number). The expectant mother takes a
ritual bath in a house chosen by the astrologer; during the walk hack to her mother-in-law’s
house she is ritually protected on all sides from the evil eye, contact with a barren woman, or
black magic. Back in the house, to which she is welcomed by a priest intoning sacred mantras.
she undergoes the main part of the ceremony: the combing and parting of her hair and its oiling,
done by her sister or sister-in-law. Her parents bring gifts, and another protective
guard in the form of a gold/silver bangle, may be put on her wrist by the sister-in-law.
At birth and during the immediately succeeding days, only women have contact with mother and
child, and, as women may not recite the Vedic mantras, the traditional ceremony at the cutting of
the umbilical cord has been dispensed with. The Sudra midwife performs certain minor rituals
associated with lessening of birth-pains and easing labour.
On the sixth day after birth an important ceremony, takes place. For the first time since birth the
auspicious turmeric mark is made on the foreheads of mother and child by an unwidowed
woman who has never lost a child, and the father’s sister makes a symbolic offering and takes
the baby’s troubles to herself by making a circular movement with her arms towards it and
cracking her knuckles against her temples. The offerings made at this ceremony are given to the
family priest, and the midwife is also given generous gifts of food.
From the tenth day the mother begins the steps back to ritual purity, and the baby, too, begins to
figure in family life.
On the eleventh or twelfth day, the Naming Ceremony, or Nãmakarana is performed, ² when
both maternal and paternal relatives gather together; thus making a corporate gesture of
acceptance and welcome for the new family member. The father’s sister again has a prominent
role: she ties scarlet threads to the baby’s cradle and the baby itself, as protection against the evil
eye, and gives the child small pieces of gold for good fortune. She it is who ritually names the
baby, after advice from the family priest, and the mother is expected to do reverence to her, and
present her with a few small coins.
A few other family rituals mark a child’s early years: piercing of the ears; the first hair-cutting,
which is begun by the family priest and completed by the family barber — an interesting
combination of ritual specialists taken from the highest and lowest castes; and, particularly
among Brahmins, the start of education, or going to school.
Perhaps the most important initiatory ritual for boys of the three twice-born castes is the Thread
Ceremony, and great emphasis is placed on its correct performance. In the case of a Brahmin. it
takes place at about eight years of age: a Kshatriya should be about eleven, a Vaishya twelvethirteen.
The ceremony, originally lasting three days. marks the boy out as belonging to one of three high
caste-groups; it also indicates the end of his childhood, since he and his mother now formally eat
together from the same plate for the last time: and through it he enters the Brahmacarya, or
student stage of life, being put under the authority and guidance of a guru. Until the ceremony
has been performed a boy cannot marry, since, of course, he has not been acknowledged as a
man. The thread itself is of cotton and must always be worn once it has been ritually donned, to
the accompaniment of sacred mantras intoned by the priest. The thread is renewed annually.
The boy undergoes some instruction from his new guru, especially learning the all-important
gāyatrī mantra, essential to daily worship, the invocation of the great mother-goddess. He makes
offerings to Agni, the sacred fire, and anoints his body with some of the ashes. He is now
ceremonially pure, and has become a full member of his twiceborn, or pure, caste. He can now perform the evening worship, Sandhyā, for his family.
The end of the ceremony marks the boy as being now marriageable; he takes a ritual bath, eats a
ritual meal, then dons new clothes provided by his mother’s brother. He symbolically begins a
pilgrimage to Benares, but is prevented from leaving home by his maternal uncle, who carries
him physically back home, or bribes him to return with offerings of money or gold, or, in
Maharashtra, with the prospect of marriage to his daughter; for in the Deccan Brahmins may
marry their maternal cousins, which would be a relationship smacking of incest elsewhere.
The final entry to manhood takes place with the first shave The family barber is called to do this,
for which he should get a turban Traditionally, also a cow should he presented to a Brahmin, but
this is rarely done nowadays.
Hindu marriage rituals are traditionally lengthy, and take several days to complete, but in
modern urban India, and even more so in Britain, the ceremony is often abbreviated to only one
day, so that minor rituals have to be excluded, and attention is focused on the essential parts of
the prescribed ceremonial.
Formerly it was considered desirable for the bride arid groom not to see each other before the
wedding, and during the early stages of the ceremony a veil, or curtain, was held between them
by priests; this was lowered, however, before the formal giving away of the bride by her parents.
This giving of a daughter always had to be performed jointly by her parents and unless the
bride’s mother, as well as the father, speaks her assent in public, the marriage cannot go forward.
The family genealogy, or gotra, of both bride and groom, is quoted by the officiating priest, to
prove publicly that they do not come from the prohibited degrees of relationship, i.e. there is no
kinship link for up to five generations on the mother’s side, and up to seven on the father’s.
During the ceremony the betrothed pair are linked symbolically by the tieing of a corner of the
bride’s sari to the groom’s scarf or shawl. Jointly they make their offering of ghee (clarified
butter) to Agni, the sacred fire, while the officiating priest intones the established Sanskrit
mantras, or prayers. The couple should circumambulate the sacred
fire, and meanwhile the groom should speak a text both religiously and socially significant:
“This am I, that art thou: that art thou, this am I; I the heavens, thou the earth. Come, let us
marry, let us beget offspring. Loving, bright, genial, may we live a hundred autumns.”
Not only does this text state the indissoluble union that is ideal Hindu marriage, it also stresses
its primary purpose — the establishment of a family, the securing of the survival of the
patrilineal inheritance and welfare unit. It urges. too, the peaceful, happy, fulfilling relationship
that should be sought by the couple; maybe not one designed to experience the troughs and peaks
of emotion and passion, but nevertheless one based on security, certainty, faithfulness. Such
permanence is reinforced by the bride’s standing on a grinding-stone, during which the groom
should say: “Ascend thou this stone. Be thou firm as a rock.” Implicit in this part of the
ceremony, which is not demanded of the bridegroom, is a recognition that break-up of a family
unit springs most often from disagreements among married daughters-in-law, not brothers.
The most significant part of Hindu marriage ritual is represented by the seven steps taken by the
couple before the sacred fire, in the presence of all. Unless these are taken, the husband has no
rights; should he die, or the ceremony be terminated in any way before completion, the bride will
be considered as still unmarried. Should he die immediately on completion of the seven steps,
however, before the rest of the ritual has been carried out, and before the marriage has been
consummated, the bride will be regarded as a widow, with all the disadvantages accruing to that
state. Each of the seven steps has a special significance.
“Take thou one step for securing food. Take thou two steps for strength, three steps for increase
in wealth. Take thou four steps for happiness. Take thou five steps for children. Take thou six
steps for the seasons. Take thou seven steps as a friend. Be thou faithfully devoted to me. May
we attain many sons. May we attain to a good old age.”
Other marriage rituals, such as the symbolic eating together of bride and groom,
re-emphasise the new unity of the couple, to the exclusion of all others. For a modern young
Hindu couple, who have known each other before marriage, many of the minor rituals will have
lost much of their significance, but traditionally, when a couple would not see each other until
the ceremony itself, and not clearly even then, owing to deliberately concealing costume and
shyness, such seemingly innocent rituals, necessitating the close proximity of an unrelated
person of the opposite sex in public, and with family approval, would have had a meaning and
decisiveness missed today.
In a strongly family-oriented society such as the Hindu we might expect funeral ceremonies,
which commemorate the earthly departure of a member of the kinship group, to be significantly
marked, and indeed this is so. Care must be taken over the proper performance of these rituals, so
that nothing may hinder the propitious re-birth of the
atman, or soul. The funeral ceremony, like the others described, is essentially a family concern, a
family responsibility, and during the rituals the privileged and vital position of the son is reemphasised. He it is who, after the corpse has been bathed, shaved, and dressed in new clothes,
and when sandal paste has been put on the forehead of the deceased, and a leaf of the holy tulsi
plant, together with a coin, placed in the mouth, whispers the sacred syllable “Om” in the ear of
the corpse. This syllable is said to attune the individual to the Infinite; and no one who has heard
a Hindu priest resonantly intone the word at the commencement of a religious ceremony can
deny the thrill of awe and expectation that comes of the experience. It is the son, then, who is the
mediator between dead parent and Brahman, the Supreme. Through the son the individual soul
is attuned to a new sphere, preparatory to entering it. It is the son, too, who ignites the funeral
pyre, and sees the ritual offerings of ghee (clarified butter) are poured upon it. To Hindus, the
all-important need for a son is not merely to ensure the continuance of the family and to secure
inheritance of land and moveable property in this world; from a son comes the certainty of a
properly conducted passage into the after-life, and an assurance of reincarnation or nirvana.
Responsibilities do not cease with death, nor with cremation; there is a requisite period of
mourning with its attendance rituals, its offerings of food to ensure the safe passage of the spirit
in the world of the dead; the performance of these ceremonies is also a safeguard for the living,
for a displeased neglected spirit can bring misfortunes on its living relatives. After twelve days
the pollution arising from a close association with the dead is removed ceremonially by bathing,
by being shaved and cutting the nails, and a feast is provided for relatives and friends. On the
anniversary of the death it is generally expected that a sŕaddha, or memorial, ceremony be
performed, at which food offerings are made for the soul of the dead person, and a feast is
prepared for relatives, close friends, arid specially invited Brahmins; in the case of a wealthy
family these last may number hundreds, as there is spiritual merit in feeding Brahmins, which
will redound to the good of the soul. The sŕaddha ceremony, however, is not a Vedic one; rites
for the dead, according to the Vedas, cease on the third day after cremation when relatives should
return to the cremation ground and collect any remains of the dead person from the ashes of the
pyre, for separate disposal.
After the ritual cleansing ceremony on the twelfth day after a death, life for family members
begins to return to normal; no longer need they wear exclusively the white of mourning, and they
can return to their usual work. For widows, however, mourning should never cease; many will
wear only white saris until their own death; they should
never again wear jewellery or perfumes, or the red kum-kum spot on the forehead and (as is the
practice in some areas) the red-stained hair-parting which denotes a married woman whose
husband is alive. The glass bangles so commonly worn by Indian women of all classes should he
ritually smashed at a husband’s death by the widow, thus symbolising the end of her role as a
wife, and her endeavour to appear attractive and pleasing, as a wife should.
It is clear that, for Hindus in Britain, the traditional cremation ceremony, with its incineration of
the body on a pyre supplied by relatives, lit by a son, to which are added offerings of
sandlewood, camphor, ghee, agar, musk and saffron, is impossible of performance. Cremation,
however, is easily obtainable, and is probably the most favoured method of disposal of the dead
in modern Western society. Hindus in Britain, have adapted quickly to the use of the
crematorium, and the non-sectarian chapels provided there pose no problems for Brahmin priests
who may he asked to officiate by intoning the sacred mantras from the appropriate Vedic texts.
In this respect, Hindus in Britain may have fewer problems than Muslims, who, of course, insist
on burial for their dead, which takes place in specially reserved areas of cemeteries, After
cremation, Hindus may choose to send the ashes back to India, where they may be scattered in
the Ganges or any other sacred river; some decide to bury the ashes in the British manner, a
memorial tablet being erected at the spot. A mourning period may he observed, as well as the
sŕaddha ceremony in due course, for which relatives and close friends will he invited, and which
they will feel it their duty to attend.
Since the major Hindu rituals are home — and family-based, their performance, especially in an
urban environment, affects the surrounding community little. The strength of Hinduism, like that
of the poplar tree, lies in its capacity to bend and adapt without breaking or, ultimately, altering
its basic form. For the Hindu, the Truth is always One, though it be expressed in numerous
different ways, and this theory has influenced the practical attitudes and adaptability of Hindus
wherever they find themselves.
“He who sees the One Spirit in all, and all in the One Spirit, henceforth can look with contempt
on no creature.”
Helen Kanitkar
School of Oriental and African Studies
NOTES
1. ‘Lucky’ women are those whose husbands ale still living and who have never lost a child.
Widows and barren women are essentially unlucky, and may pass their ill-luck to others.
2. This is still an important ceremony among Hindus in Britain, although it is usually
held much later. Until a child is thus publicly and formally named, the chosen name
should not he used, as evil spirits may hear it and call the child away to its death before it
has received ceremonial protection Even after the naming ceremony a nickname (usually
an uncomplimentary one, to deceive the evil spirits) may be commonly used, again to
protect the child.