Innocence of Humans and Rituals

I have always been fascinated with origins of things and occasionally their originality. I have been lucky to have a highly philosophical mother with a great knowledge of local focklores and philosophies.

Well being a human and a member of one of the world's oldest human religious community I have to occasionally conform to, adhere to, be a part of and also am supposedly supposed to believe in many rituals. But then again how did and when did such rituals origin?? An interesting question isn't it??

Well as I said, my religion - Hinduism, is an old one. Some of the rituals which are a part of it, like taking a bath regularly for instance, have been thought of and applied to by sages and saints of old, who I am sure were very right. Why not? In such a hot country, adding Bath as a ritual to religion meant that Hindu people atleast would stay nice and fresh everyday !!
But then again some of the rituals that we people follow seem mindless and useless to me...
Which ones you ask? Well I'm not answering that one because I may inadvertently hurt someone's sentiments - has happened before. So be a judge yourself. And moreover I'm not deprecating or deriding my religion, its just my individual viewpoint on some particular thing.

Anyway... these useless rituals... my idea is they must have arose from people's own innocence among many causes. Let me relate a story -told by my mother, who in turn heard it from my grandmother, sometime ago. You'll be able to judge the above statement yourself...


Once in a village in India a person passed away. On the 13th day the Brahmin priests were praying for the deceased soul's peace and vindication in Heaven (a ceremony known as Shraddhha in Sanskrit) , as per Hindu rituals. During these rituals as per custom a large offering of milk and milk-products were displayed as offering (among many other stuff) for the deceased soul's "benefit" (for his afterlife). The dead man's son was busy along with the priests in various ritualistic works. In between all this, a cat, probably belonging to the household itself was attracted by the offerings of milk and constantly tried to taste the stuff. The brahmins and the man's son were thwarting the cats plans but it was persistent in its task. After a while the son became angry and ordered the servants to get rid of the cat.

The servants in their turn decided to tie the cat with a string to a pomegranate tree growing on the very courtyard where the ceremony was taking place among all the other offerings kept there (apart from the milk and milk products stuff such as clothes, utensils, umbrella, bedding etc.etc. .... things that would be required by a deceased soul in the afterlife)!!!

Now the deceased person's grandson (5 or 6 yeasr old) was witness to all this drama, and naturally it left a lasting impression on his young mind !

Some years later it was the turn of the man's son to pass away and the day came for the ritualistic day of vindication. It was now the turn of the grandson to follow the rituals. As usual the Brahmin priests were brought and they began preparing everything for the prayer service and gave the list of the "to be made" offerings to the grandson, who had by now reached manhood. The grandson after looking over the list promptly asked the priests "everything here's alright, but where's the cat and the pomegranate tree?" The surprised priests declared their ignorance of such a ritualistic offering. On which the grandson replied "Well gentlemen, in our household its a custom and a ritual to tie a cat to a pomegranate tree as an offering during a deceased person's vindication(shraddhh) ceremony. I myself witnessed it as a fact during my grandfather's vindication ceremony and there's no way I'll allow the ceremony to go on for my father without that particular detail"... !!!

Now of course the grandson's house did not have either a cat nor a pomegranate tree growing on its courtyard.
Hence as a substitute they caught hold of a stray cat and tied it to a pomegranate branch which they planted in the courtyard where the ceremony was to be held, and the rest of the ceremony proceeded as usual !!!

And believe it or not, as a ritual and a custom that particular "detail" became a part of the vindication ceremonies for generations in the original deceased man's family !


Its up to the reader now to decide that whether the fact is true or not. Rituals like rumors arose out of Human beings' innocence among many causes !! I believe that almost all of them have innocence as the primary cause - human beings are born innocent. They learn what they see, what they are taught, what they experience... so its after all natural for habits becoming rituals, thoughts becoming rituals and some weird and unscientific things becoming rituals and customs.