Hinduism- Rituals, Reason and Beyond (A Journey Through the Evolution of 5000 Year Old Traditions)

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About the Author For the purpose of writing this book, Ashok Mishra spent over seven years studying more than 400 books, journals and monographs, to understand the roots of Hinduism. A double post- graduate in Electronic Engineering from Allahabad University, he was a resident of Muir Hostel from 1966-72. He then served as the CEO of an Indo-Japanese manufacturing venture and a Director in International Management Consultancy. Since 1981, he has been running a manufacturing business producing defence grade electronic components for US & other countries in Mumbai. His passions include Indology, Religion, History and listening to Classical music.

Preface I recall clearly the late morning six-and-a-half years ago, when we had gathered for a small family function - the mundana (tonsure) ceremony of my nephew's daughter at my apartment. There must have been 15 to 20 of us, nephews and nieces, their spouses and children, and a barber to shave the head of the barely 1-year-old baby-girl. Those familiar with this ceremony, an important samskära in every Hindu's life, know the head shaving is followed by a feast. The child, nestled in the lap of her mother, invariably resists the barber's attempts to hold its head still as he tries to remove all the hair. To prevent the baby from twisting and turning and getting injured by the razor, some member of family usually volunteers to hold the child firmly. Nobody enjoys this part of ceremony. Most certainly not the child who cries in protest right through the shaving which is repeated three times.

As the barber held the head of my nephew's daughter, she started to scream and hearing the child cry, her father (my nephew) intervened, instructing the barber not to shave, to use a pair of scissors instead to symbolically cut off a lock of hair. Many of nephews and nieces present murmured their approval, making me react more sharply than I had intended to. If I remember correctly, I said something along these lines; if you're not happy with the head being shaved, then better not have the ceremony at all! Let's not pretend that by clipping a lock of hair you would have performed mundana samskära. I remember adding - we can all have a nice party even without the samskara, but if the idea is for the child to go through mundana. then let's do it properly because it is an important milestone in the life of a Hindu child, and the family. There was a momentary silence - everyone gathered there thought I was upset because a tradition was not being followed. They were taken aback because they knew me as a non-traditionalist; not a 'conservative' Hindu, but as a great liberal. The child's father remarked that he did not know shaving of the head was a samskära, an important milestone in the life of a child.

Introduction At no stage of my schooling, primary or secondary, was I taught anything about the pre-Indus Valley civilization. Despite my habit of modest but regular reading, until about seven years back I believed - wrongly, as now know - that Indian civilization started with Indus Valley. During the course of my research for this book, I spoke to numerous school going children in Northern India, Maharashtra and Goa. Without exception, they shared the same mistaken notions about the beginnings of Indian civilization. The name Mehrgarh doesn't ring any bells for them. I also interviewed a number of graduate and postgraduate housewives and working women - many of them teachers in the above regions. I found their responses no different from that of the students they taught!

For some strange reason we see our genesis only in Vedic Aryans! We seem to think that the India of pre-Vedic days (Indus Valley, Mehrgarh and earlier) belonged to some other peoples who were not our forefathers. How strange, and yet not strange at all.

It is not strange because, as a student, I was never taught at any stage of my schooling that the history of my ancestors is at least as old as the skeletons, the mud bricks, and the broken pot shreds of Mehrgarh. Or that my ancestors baked the clay bricks and built those beautiful double storeyed houses which had bathrooms on the upper floor from where, through the vertical pipes, the water flowed down into the covered drainage system on the streets. For us, those people of the Indus Valley (and prior) were a different race that, for reasons we aren't very sure of, completely disappeared from the face of India.

And it is strange because we - the argumentative Indians, who like to question even that which is obvious have believed for several generations, with nary a question, that an entire race disappeared with the Indus Valley civilization. We do not enquire: How did a fairly developed civilization, several centuries old, completely cease to exist, thereby leaving the slate of Indian civilization clean for Vedic Aryans and their Hindu descendants to script their own story?

**Contents and Sample Pages**