Can you imagine a world without any boys named Abhishek or girls named Puja? I simply can’t! It is too horrible and sad to even contemplate (unless it raises the worth of existing Abhisheks and Pujas). A generation from now, that’s where we might be headed if these crazy food prices don’t start to come down and these rituals become obsolete. The Washington Post on Wednesday described the growing problem in sad detail:
Every morning, Hindu devotees haul buckets of fresh, creamy milk into this neighborhood temple, then close their eyes and bow in prayer as the milk is used to bathe a Hindu deity. At the foot of the statue, they leave small baskets of bananas, coconuts, incense sticks and marigolds… But recently, Ram Gopal Atrey, the head priest at Prachin Hanuman Mandir, noticed donations thinning for the morning prayers. He knew exactly why: inflation.
With prices soaring for staples such as cooking oils, wheat, lentils, milk and rice across the globe, priests like Atrey say they are seeing the consequences in their neighborhood temples, where even the poorest of the poor have long made donations to honor their faith.
“But today the common man is tortured by the increases in prices,” Atrey lamented during one early morning prayer, or puja, adding that donations of milk were down by as much as 50 percent. [Link]
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p>Without milk you cannot shower the Siva Lingam properly (hence, no Abhishek). Blame it on gas prices. The main reason that milk is becoming so expensive in India is because it costs more to ship that milk around by automobile. Dudhwallas no longer carry as much straight from the local cow.
In New Delhi, the price of rice rose by 20 percent and the price of lentils by 18 percent in the past year. Cooking oil prices have climbed by 40 percent over the same period. The price of milk, which is essential in both diets and religious rituals, rose more than 11 percent in the past year.
Milk is literally the nectar of gods in India. Most temples in the south use it at least twice a day to bathe Hindu statues, since it symbolizes the eternal goodness of human beings and is seen as a generous offering to the faith. [Link]
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p>In rough times like this you can begin to see part of the origin of vegetarianism in Hinduism. If you ate cows then the precious milk which sustains so much of the malnourished population would become even more scarce. Better to “make” beef sacrilegious lest you fall up hard times like these and be without. Now if we could have a reformation where the use of gasoline was deemed by many religions as being sacrilegious as well.
All humor aside, the food crisis is increasingly worrisome. Poor people spend a vastly greater portion of their earnings on food than people who are better off. If you squeeze them even more AND you take away their ability to pray in a traditional manner at the same time, that’s a powder keg of misery just waiting to go off, not just in India, but in many parts of this world.
43 · louiecypher said
Louiecypher,
You were right, and I was wrong. But you’ve got to admit – that’s a waste of good milk. Perhaps, the Brahmins should drink the milk to give them the strength to pour molten lead down the Sudra’s throat/ear.
Dude seems well-fed enough.
Watch ’em fry or watch ’em die!
53 · Rahul said
“To make the list, an animal or plant — whether American eels, pre-Civil War peanuts or Seneca hominy flint corn — has to be more than simply edible. It must meet a set of criteria that define it as a part of American culture, too.” 🙁
Seriously, though, that was an interesting read. On one hand, it is true that getting people interested in saving these species could certainly be stimulated by appealing to the taste buds. On the other hand, it leads right back into that same old anthrpocentrism (which which I’m uncomfortable), not to mention a possible induction of those species into the horrendous factory-style production we employ. I’m saddened that sometimes we can’t just let things live with no reference to our own welfare or enjoyment.
I agree with you fully. But given that we live in a world where self-interest and intense nationalism rule over even purely humanitarian concerns, maybe it is most pragmatic to take advantage of these sentiments to save other species.
(I also found the existence of an animal like this awesome: “the Tennessee fainting goat, which keels over when startled,” Seems so genteel, just like the southern ladies! Bring out the smelling salts 🙂
Did you guys miss Condi’s explanation of the global food crisis? That Indians and Chinese are eating too much and could we please eat less so that the US can still keep producing biofuel.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1367064/indian_diet_behind_food_crisis/
50 · boston_mahesh said
Yes, but Hinduism is also the only religion that has embraced diversity of belief systems within itself which explains why there is democracy in “Republic of India” and not in “Islamic republic of Pak”.
and isn’t Bangladesh formally called the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, while having an almost 90% Muslim population?
58 · ensure said
Yes but the Hindu population reduced from 28% in 1941 to 9.2% in 2001 according to wikipedia The reasons for this decline is attributed to ethic cleansing of hindus in majority muslim Bangladesh. Same is true with Pakistan.
boston_mahesh #50 wrote:
Really? Sati is an old old Indian custom. Abbe Dubois in Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies writes about witnessing two South Indian queens (from Thanjavur I think) commit sati. There were no foreign invaders in Thanjavur or wherever this was. From an earilier period (10th century) also in Tamilnadu this Chola king’s wife also committed sati. This was pre-Islam and and once again there were no foreign invaders.
I think the comfort level Indians have with burning women alive (e.g. bride burning, sati) goes back to the fire test that Sita was made to go through.
the ethnic cleansing came courtesy of the pakistani regime, hindus and muslims lived side by side for generations in bengal before that.
Re: #44, Divya said: But the rituals are for us and not Ganesha, no?
Ah, that makes sense! That precisely, is the point! The rituals are entirely for us! We (Hindus) have done away with many rituals from the past and perhaps it is time now to do away with these abhishekams. End of story.
Within India, rituals vary from region to region, caste to caste, and even family to family. In temples too, each one has its own method that it chooses to follow, although the Vedas are the main guide for all.
For instance, I heard from my grandparents that in their days, weddings used to last a week or 10 days! Haven’t we cut it short now, getting by with the rituals that are absolutely compulsory (the panigrihanam, for instance), leaving out a lot of the tamasha? Deepavali is celebrated in so many different ways all over the country, isn’t it, with each region having its own reason for the celebration.
When I got married, I did not want to buy any silk sarees. My parents were a bit disappointed, but when I explained to them that I did not want thousands of silk works being boiled alive for me to look radiant, they understood. And just to check, my mom looked up the specific portions in the Veda and found that the only stipulation is that the bride and groom need to wear new, unused, washed and clean clothes on the day of the wedding! (nowhere does it mention silk, which was a later modification, obviously!).
While on the topic of weddings, when I moved to the US a decade ago, I was surprised to see how quick the weddings here were done! Rehearsals, seating arrangements, no kids allowed, all this was new to me. And I noticed, on the local craigslist, for instance, just how many brides were trying to sell their wedding gowns (purchased at steep prices of several thousand dollars! I don’t know about others, but for me, spending, say $4000.00 on a wedding gown that I’d be wearing only for a couple of hours seems like a terrible waste; My own wedding saree was cotton and back in ’93, cost Rs.400 and it serves me well even today, when I wear it on festive occasions).
And Boston_Mahesh, you seem to be intensely anti-brahmin – get over it, man! You are only burning yourself with the hatred.
topcat, from your past comments, i know you love to get into the competitive intolerance game favored by trolls on this blog, but this comparison is especially completely irrelevant to the post at hand.
quoting pre-partition statistics is silly. yes, reasonable people will agree that theocratic foundations for states are horrible, and partition was historically problematic for a variety of reasons, but your claim of genocide cannot be supported by brandishing a 1941 number.
63 · Just a correction said
Apparently you did not read my whole post. Below are the statistics again.
Declining Hindu population in Bangladesh region Year Percentage (%) 1941 28.0% 1951 22.0% 1961 18.5% 1974 13.5% 1981 12.13% 1991 10.52% 2001 9.2%
“We (Hindus) have done away with many rituals from the past and perhaps it is time now to do away with these abhishekams. End of story.”
I agree with this comment. Especially if its making a desperate situation worse. On the other hand, I don’t think they need to be done away with completely. Instead of twice a day bathing (although I don’t know any temples which do that) it would make more sense to make it a monthly thing, or something done only on festival days.
Evils of ersatz Hinduism are way too many to defend. Let sympathizers not waste their time dithering with baiters in their turf. Instead lets work towards the larger goal.
The difference between creators and parasites, windbags and workers, hindutva and communism, Gujarat and Bengal, lies in the proof of the concept, not the concept itself.
For a lot of us who have grown up in Hindu homes, it has been instilled from childhood that offerings made to the gods should not be thrown away. In most temples, milk that is used for abhishekam is distributed as prasadam or consumed by the priest and his family or given to others. Same is true for all the other food offerings, none of which is thrown away. You may or may not get a part of what you offered, but there is no economic wastage as it gets consumed by someone.
The intent of the article is to show how the increase in food price is affecting the way people live, their faith and and their traditions. It talks about the real life experiences of people bearing the burden of price increases. Relating these experiences to each other, the conclusion seems to be obvious.
Wasting of milk on Abhishekam increases food prices, affecting the poor people.
It is morally wrong to waste milk on idols, when it can as well be given to those who cannot afford it.
To the first point, I already mentioned that there is no economic wastage and hence no impact on milk prices. To the second point, how many of us would reduce/stop eating steak, so that cows could live longer and produce more milk.
Growing up in a Hindu household we performed many poojas. I always thought to myself, what an insane waste of milk, sugar, honey, rice etc. Whenever I would ask why we are wasting food, I was always given the answer, “The more you give to God, the more you get in return.” That inane statement shut me up. (I believe the Creator could care less about how much milk you pour on an idol.)
It is true that some of the milk/sugar/etc poured on the deities gets made into a prasadam or payasam. However, a lot of the milk and other ingredients becomes unfit to consume or just gets wasted.
A lot goes down the drain…
Exactly.
“Growing up in a Hindu household we performed many poojas. I always thought to myself, what an insane waste of milk, sugar, honey, rice etc. Whenever I would ask why we are wasting food,”
did you guys have a moolavar in your home shrine or something or how many abhishekams could your parents possibly have performed to be using vast quantities of sugar, honey, rice etc?
I grew up in a fairly religious south indian household, and I can’t recall wasting these ingredients. The only thing that comes to mind is the turmeric colored rice used for varalakshmi vratham and even then it was like a handful. All the sugar and honey and rice was pretty much used for making sweets for the naivedhyam, which we ate later.
Abhishekams traditionally aren’t usually done on a daily or twice daily basis-I think there is an acknowledgment that one requires a lot of resources. For example, in Tirumala, the main deity is only bathed on Friday, while the tiny bhoga murti is used on a daily basis-this is done to avoid having to perform the ritual to the main moolavar.
For those of us who view the abhishekam as more than just “pouring milk over an idol” its a really beautiful ritual-I hope they don’t do away with it, I just hope that temples might tone down the amount of times they’re performing it, or cut back on how much milk is used especially given the current situation.
“To the first point, I already mentioned that there is no economic wastage and hence no impact on milk prices.”
In theory, its supposed to be collected-but usually its not.
“Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation and his vivid descriptions of factory farming of livestock, poultry and fish, the use of animals for cosmetics and often gratuitous scientific testing, and by the human-centric argument that a vegetarian diet is more environmentally efficient, and can feed more people”
Rahul,
is this the same Peter Singer of supposed zoophilia support fame? i.e. (does not constitute a transgression of our status as human beings). I’d argue Fearnley-Whittingstall’s accounts of the nuts and bolts of factory farming would prove a more forceful argument to bitter supermarket shoppers than Singer’s kibbles n’ bits (sorry, had to do it).
72 · Nayagan said
It is — actually Singer’s account based on sentience, capacity to experience pleasure and pain, intelligence (all human like traits) is quite persuasive, and strongly grounded in the tradition of arguments for why humans deserve rights. Singer’s arguments are not grounded in zoophilia at all.
Although Singer is a utilitarian (and thus, doesn’t use rights as absolute constraints), here is the principle he uses to derive his ethical theory.
Thanks esdawet for bringing in an actual beliver’s perspective. I consider myself an agnostic when it comes to gods, religions, traditions or rituals. I personally find no meaning in them, but I recognize that they hold special meaning to the people who believe in them or find happiness in them. In fact, I avoid visiting religious places for the fear that my flippancy in such places may offend some people.
When I said there was no economical wastage, I was trying to be rhetorical. Of course when you mix milk with sandal wood paste the mixture becomes inedible. But what I was looking for was a retort which quantifies the impact of Abhishekam on the price of milk or at least how much milk is wasted on rituals compared to what is consumed. Apparently there is none. Then why do people advocate such things without data? and more importantly why is it assumed that this wastage has an impact on the poor people. This assumption is obvious when the wapost article talks about how the poor have stopped drinking milk because of price increases while those who can afford still perform abhishekam.
The second point was more about challenging the economic origin of prohibition of beef consumption by Hindus (which the blog mentioned in passing). Will elaborate about this if some one is willing to debate this further..
As portmanteau mentioned, his zoophilia is not the origin of his arguments for ethical treatment of animals. His Animal Liberation, while explicitly making utilitarian and sentience arguments, also details the awful practices prevalent in factory farming, cosmetics testing, and scientific research, which should give any reasonable person pause about being complicit in these cruelties. Also, I think Singer was one of the earliest people to make people aware of these issues, and it is a bandwagon a lot of people have jumped on since. Personally, anything that makes people aware of all of the reasons factory farming is abhorrent is a good thing in my book, in any case.
As for zoophilia, that’s a discussion for another time, when I don’t have pressing deadlines 🙂
73 · portmanteau said
didn’t think so in the least. In college I often felt contempt for people who became veg only after taking sociology 101 (as a from-birth lacto-veg) but I’ve learned, from numerous viewings of Vampire movies, that those borne to the blood, and those turned after a more conventional life, are equal nonetheless.
Ok, this was an awful sentence. I think Singer has said that he doesn’t consider inter-species sex “normal” (whatever that means), only that he doesn’t view zoophilia as contradictory to the special status of humans, because humans are just great apes.
but I’ve learned, from numerous viewings of Vampire movies, that those born[
e?] to the blood, and those turned after a more conventional life, are equal nonetheless.please — don’t start defending non-veg uncle.
40 · Rahul said
Usually non veggies, especially doctors, tell u how much better off they are, with boring details of their anatomy. I am healthy, haven’t taken vitamins/supplements for 25 years. (Is this anti-American?)I remain mostly vegan (and silent) because I have no wish to inflict pain on any creature or listening human. The idea that I should eat something like fish because ‘it is good for u’ is irrelevant to me. My well-being is not paramount, not at any cost. Yes, I do use leather,or related products simply because I don’t wish to struggle all the time. But where possible I would certainly opt for the vegan object.