Rites of passage are developmental milestones that people everywhere experience. The components and degree of importance vary extensively across cultures, but in all cases may have a profound impact on the individual and the society as a whole. For Hindu’s, these sacraments are known as samskaras, a collection of the most significant events in the lifecycle, beginning prior to birth and continuing past the individual’s death. Although there are sixteen recognized samskaras, only a subset is commonly practiced. From one Hindu society to another, there will be variations in which samskaras are observed, as well as the details involved in each. Translation of the word samskara reveals it to mean “making perfect” or “refining,” and thus is seen as a process by which one works toward a life of meaningful spirituality and bondage with the community (Dasa, 2007).
While there are several samskaras that take place prior to birth, simantoyannayanam, the baby shower, is the most widely performed. The birthing ceremony is known as jatkarma, followed by nama karana, the naming ceremony, anna prashanna, the first consumption of solid food, karnavedha, the ear piercing, and chudakarma, the first haircut. Vidyarambhana marks the entrance of the child into education, while upanayana signifies the coming of age of the child and entrance into society. The marriage sacrament is referred to as vivaha, and the funeral is denoted antyesthi. The remaining six samskaras are more traditional and less commonly practiced today.
Samskaras have a great deal to do with society, morality, and the belief that the consequences of one’s actions extend farther than oneself. They are considered developmentally important in that without them, the individual is vulne...
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... cremation, these rites of passage are highly influential to the development of the individual and society. They mark the stages at which one is able to grow in spirituality and attain meaningful relations with others.
Works Cited
Britannica Academic Edition. Samskaras: Rites of passage. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/266312/Hinduism/59788/Samskaras-rites-of-passage; accessed November 12, 2013.
Dasa, S. N., (2007). A Hindu primer. Devasthanam: A Hindu resource where faith an scholarship meet. Retrieved from http://www.sanskrit.org/www/Hindu%20Primer/samskaras.html; accessed November 12, 2013.
Prad, (2012). 16 Samskara—16 Hindu rites performed from birth to death. Retrieved from http://pradeepamohan.net/blog/2012/12/31/16-samskaras-16-rites/; accessed November 12, 2013.
Sigelman, C. K. & Rider, E. A., (2012). Life-span human development.
In ancient India, many members of lower casts wanted to come back as members of higher casts. While this is an important goal of reincarnation, the main goal is to reach either moksha (Hinduism) or nirvana (Buddhism). In other words, the goal is to reach a point of spiritual enlightenment that removes the person from the reincarnation process. Geoff Childs, an anthropologist, examines the views of the Buddhist religion by studying the lives of the people in Tibetan villages. He looks at issues that adversely affect these people, such as infant mortality.
1.) Intro: I decided to focus my Religious Ethnography on a friend whom I recently have become close with. Adhita Sahai is my friend’s name, which she later told me her first name meant “scholar.” I choose to observe and interview Adhita, after she invited me to her home after hearing about my assignment. I was very humbled that she was open to this, because not only was it a great opportunity for this paper, but it also helped me get to know Adhita better. I took a rather general approach to the religious questions that I proposed to the Sahai family because I didn’t want to push to deep, I could tell Hinduism is extremely important to this family. Because this family does not attend a religious site where they worship, I instead listened to how they do this at home as a family instead.
Fisher, Mary Pat. "Chapter 5: Buddhsim." Living Religions. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice-Hall, 2005. 150-62. Print.
The belief systems of Hinduism and Buddhism have been around for centuries, and play a pivotal role in many countries around the world. Both Hinduism and Buddhism derive from the same source and area, which naturally gives them similarities, but they differ in many ways as well. These similarities and differences can clearly be seen when looking at how both belief systems approach spiritual fulfillment and the dilemma of how this fulfillment can be achieved.
Today the society is looking for ways to ease life and to find solutions for problems which oppress our lives and make it hard to live through. Because of many reasons, the traditional burials in this century are becoming a problem. (Prothero,2001). The fact that they cover a lot of land to build cemeteries and other things that are attached to these traditional burials is enough for us to search for a practical solution. About a century ago the term "cremation" was unknown to many people. It is believed that it began to be practiced during the early Stone Age and still exists today. Since that time cremations have been made all over the world, but they have never been so popular as they are now in this century. First and the most important to us all are the costs which are much less expensive for cremations than for funerals . Second, cremation does not contaminate the earth and cause a foul odor in the ground. Third, a lot of land is saved which means that it has an environmental impact.
As a young wife and mother, Ashima Ganguli experiences labor and delivery just like many other American women, in a hospital. Motherhood is offered as a transnational identity, representing the traditional gender roles sometimes considered subordinate. Ashima quietly observes the habits of the American women that surround her. She overhears husbands telling their wives they love them. This is something a Bengali husband or wife would never say. While maintaining many traditional Bengali beliefs and practices, giving birth in a hospital is more typical of an American woman. Traditionally, Indian women are known to give birth in the home where they grew up, returning to their childhood, without the presence of their husbands or inlaws.
Living in a society where several cultures and religious beliefs are represented, such an event as memorable as death is bound to be celebrated differently. The paper attempts to look at the various ways different culture and religious practices prepare the body of the deceased for burial and the role of health care workers.
The idea of samsara is roughly that of reincarnation. All souls are trapped in a cycle of life, death, and rebirth. The goal of each of these souls is to escape the cycle of samsara and obtain moksha. Moksha is a reincarnation with a god. In recent Hinduism the moksha that you obtain is with the god of your choice, or whomever you worshipped as your patron deity. The terms of dharma and karma are the tools that we must use in order to obtain moksha and escape samsara.
Each month our educational center section provides the Hinduism Today staff with a 'kind of group meditation. Individually we ponder our subject, and together we discuss it in detail. These past 30 days our meditation was on death. You might think we had a morbid March. Not so, since, as U.S. General George Patton rightly noted, "For Hindus death is the most exalted experience of life."
The four main stages of life in Hinduism also take the caste system into account. The first stage is that of a student, being led by a teacher. T...
Many foreigners cannot know what makes Hinduism so strange. Hinduism lacks an uniting belief system and many people do not know faithfully what makes up the Hindu religious belief. After one goes in-depth concerning Hinduism, one must be familiar with the fundamental details about this difficult religion. Do you realize that almost 80 percent of the India people find themselves being Hindus? Hinduism is in addition known as the Sanatana-Dharma, which means everlasting religion. Hinduism is the third leading religion following Christianity and Islam and has no one initiator, teacher, or spiritualist and it is not an unconvinced religion. All through this article, I will look further in-depth on what makes up the Hindu religion what the traditional and group influences that have prepared Hinduism fundamental to Hinduism, and I will provide details the yearning for freedom from early existence.
As species we are all born human, yet the journey we take on the passage of life defines us as individuals. Our lives are an array of moments of secular and spiritual change. Regardless of their importance, in both contexts, these occurrences represent a transition from one stage of life to another. People formalized these important moments of physical or social change by ritualization, or also known as ‘rite of passage’. The rites of passage play an important role in society. They are an efficient tool in restoring and maintaining balance within the social environment. At the same time, through rituals, they lead the initiate to social transformation. Rites of passage characteristically give assurance of mastery of the new roles and often include instruction in the new roles.
Not only is the burial rite a ritual but it is an event based on strong beliefs of the afterlife. Each step or item used in the funerary process had an explanation or logical reason. This ritual was extremely important in the eyes of the Egyptians that even the poorest among them would be given a ceremony because they believed if failed to do so the ghost would come to haunt them. The goal of the ritual as well as the ceremony had a purpose to aid the deceased in their journey to the afterlife.
Liminality encompasses all aspects of life after death, including entrance into the realm of the dead or the return to earth. The Hindu death rituals serve to guarantee that loved ones reach the next world and do not return as malignant ghosts. Family members or friends of the deceased perform these ceremonies; therefore, the fate of the dead depends on the action of the living. Axel Michaels states, “When people die, they become ancestors, forefathers, heroes, ghosts or demons, but not dead, not without ‘life’. What they become depends on the…relationship between the deceased and the survivors” (131). The rituals begin even before death occurs; traditionally, such as lying the dying person on the floor, an oil lamp is placed near the head, family members join in prayer and song and the Brahman who performs the funeral rites receives a gift of a cow (133). All of these steps are taken to prepare the person to die, and give him or her chance to accept that death is approaching. By accepting the imminent, one is less likely to leave their body unwillingly and attempt to return to it once they have passed; thus preventing the deceased returning as a hungry ghost
Nesbitt, E. (2002). The body in Sikh religion. In S. Coakley (Eds.), Religion and the Body (pp. 289-305). UK: Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.