The legacy of Indian culture and heritage is so great that it inspires us to consider everything in nature as holy and powerful. Man is at nature’s mercy, if he goes against its will, the cruel punishment he receivers might range from depriving him of his legitimate livelihood to death! Hindus believe that, the entire creation, including the life of the humans is made up of five elements; (1)‘Prithvi’ (the earth ),’Aapaha’(water),’Tejaha’(Fire or effulgence),and ‘Vaayahu’(air),’Aakaasha’(the aetherial sky, the infinite space above).After death, the human body dissolves into these five elements of nature and thereby balances the nature’s cycle of ‘Srishti’ (creation) followed by ‘pralayam’ (extinction or annihilation).
(2)In Hinduism, a very prominent belief is that, water cleanses all the ailments of human body and it is the symbol of fertility without which human existence becomes impossible. Most of the holy places are located on the banks of the rivers, sea shores and mountain ranges. They have special significance and they are considered sacred. It is the goal of the Hindus to bathe in the waters once in their life time, to be cleansed of their wrong doings .(3)The Hindus have a close and sentimental pious attachment to all the rivers in India. The Narmada is one of the most sacred rivers of the seven holy rivers, originates from the Maikali ranges at Amarkantak in MP and flows between the mountain ranges of Vindhya and Sathpura. Gita Mehta, a post colonial writer, meticulously weaves the stories and connects the lives of the characters to the holy river the Narmada in her book, ’A River Sutra’.’Sutra’ means thread that connects, ’River Sutra’ means river that connects. Throughout the book, one cou...
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...e could understand, digest and try to showcase the Indian culture and heritage is quite inspiring.
Works Cited
1.The Five Elements - Jiva Ayurveda
http://www.jiva.com/ayurveda/about-ayurveda/31.html
2.All You Need to Know About Hinduism: Water and Hinduism
http://history-of-hinduism.blogspot.com/2010/06/water-and-hinduism.htm
3.The 7 Most Sacred Rivers of India - WalkThroughIndia
http://www.walkthroughindia.com/attraction/the-7-most-sacred-rivers-of-india
4.Gita Mehta Essay - Mehta, Gita - eNotes.com
http://www.enotes.com/topics/gita-mehta/critical-essays
5.Eternal Ganesha: Gita Mehta: Amazon.com: Books
http://www.amazon.com/Eternal-Ganesha-Gita-Mehta/dp/B00AZ8TAPS
6.A River Sutra by Gita Mehta, VIKING-Penguin India
7.Hamlet by Shakespeare
8.Gita Mehta: Making India Accessible - May 1997
http://people.virginia.edu/~pm9k/59/tales/gitapub.html
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Birth, Death, and Rebirth: Sky Burial and the Cyclical Cosmos of Tibetan Buddhism. n.d. University of Missouri. Web. 2014 February 2014.
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Death is natural. It affects everyone and everything that is living. It is something that every person comes to understand as being a part of life, yet people are so often afraid of it. Death reminds people of all the negative things that are a part of life, such as pain and sorrow. If an alternative to death comes around, or something makes death easier, people want to take a part of that. Many people jump to religious ideologies not always because they truly believe in them or want to follow them, but because they want to escape death. Yet in many eastern religions, death is unavoidable and cyclical. There is new life after death, but that life leads death again, and the cycle seemingly continues forever. This cycle of rebirth is often called reincarnation in western culture. It is one of the core beliefs in many eastern religions. Hinduism is one of those religions; in fact, it is likely the first religion to adopt this train of thought, as Hopfe and Woodward (2014) claim it is perhaps “the oldest and most complex of all religions in the world” (p. 78). Before one fully understands Hinduism, they must recognize the relation reincarnation has to it. Reincarnation is a foundational belief in Hinduism, and it
Nesbitt, E. (2002). The body in Sikh religion. In S. Coakley (Eds.), Religion and the Body (pp. 289-305). UK: Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.