Free Essay About Worship And Ritual Of Hinduism

Buddhists and Hindus devotees visit the temple every day to worship and receive Maha Vishnu’s Divine Blessings. Hindus believe that Maha Vishnu is the preserver of the universe since he is one of the Thirumoorthy in the Hindu Pantheon. The Sri Lanka receives Maha Vishnu as the custodian of the Island while they venerate him as the Supreme Deity. Hindu mythology cites that Maha Lakshmi arises from the milky ocean while churned by Devas. The goddess embodies grace and charm to generate a fortune and a good future. Her statue appears seated or standing on a Lotus pedestal. Garuda has a face and beak to resemble a vulture while has a human body. Maha Vishnu embodies humility, beauty, and wisdom. The Hindu considers him as the greatest Karma Yogi that will save humanity to establish Dharma. Maha Vishnu takes ten major incarnations that include Majsya avatar, Varaha avatar, Narasingha, Vamana, Bala Rama, King Rama, Lord Vishnu, and Kalki Avatar.
According to Frazier (2012), what make one a Hindu is not what he or she believes rather it is the ritual practices that he or she practices and rules governed. Hinduism contains verbal text in the form of poetry, narrative, and discussion concerning rituals, techniques, customs, and practices. Hindu activities constitute a major part of the devotees’ religious life. Hinduism is a cultural form that manages to reproduce itself through the ages to internalize doxa. Frazier (2012) says that ritual is the creation of habit through practices that help in establishing the people we would like to become to shape lives that we would like to lead.
Hindu culture contains explicit theorization of karma action that contains a different class of questions. The cosmological question asks concerning the nature of the first actions, ethical questions that ask concerning the right and wrong actions and metaphysical questions that ask concerning causal implications of actions. The value of acts maps to a multiple grid that include good and bad in the mahatmyas, wise and stupid deeds in ni Tisa Stra, pravrtti and nivrtti action, and yoga texts such as the Bhagavad-Gita. Much of Hindu culture takes place in a medium other than words since it mentions physical attributes such as movements, attributes, journey, breathing, eating, and any other form of action. Hindus state actions are the best form of life since they are important entities with a lasting impact on cosmos.
The tacit mutability of practice denotes the ability of maintaining the form while shifting meaning to change and create a religion within the boundaries of tradition. Frazier (2012) elaborates how Hindus become creative theologians through using ritual syntax to develop a new regional form that adapt yogic techniques that depict a new interpretation to some of the inherited practices such as the Japan recitation. Individuals have permission to employ creativity to draw Kolam patterns, performing mediums to respond to the experience of possession, musical expressions, and Brahmins adornment of temple image in new garments.
Every expression employs creativity facilitated by the religious practice that works contrary to the predominant passive reception of textual traditions. A lived text of religious practice depicts a robust manifestation of Hinduism. Rituals in comparison to Hindu text cut across cultural and theological shift to serve as an invariant event in the society. The Hindu practice is innate and unconscious where it leads to an independent life of a devotee. The visual and enacted context of Hindu worship has an essential relationship to the ritual practice.
Froystad(2012) stresses on sensory character of puja as well as tantric practice to pervade Hinduism in regard to activities such as reconstruction of the body by initiates, worshippers, and devotional participation that embodies the character of Hindu worship. The phenomenologist of religious practice has an affective, sensory, physical, social, and mental state than conceptual propositions. Mantric utterances that establish the verbal aspects of Hindu ritual practice happen in a poetic way to those that utter and hear them. Searching for meaning in the practice turns an observer outward action to speculators inner state in the experience of religious tradition.
The structural practice of Hinduism has a strong sense of value in an ordered world. The maintenance of the structures in the natural and social is the main theme in Hindu ritual. Vedic sacrifice such as Visnu brings order to affirm the construction of Purusa and Varnas. In the world of Hindu, the orders of nature, thought, and society are ethical concepts to represent structures that invite cooperation.
The rta is the active realization of the truth to co-create all the ritual enactors. The Medha that has sacrificial objects is the conveyor of causal efficacy to give one the power of the universe and the causal law of Karma to empower people to affect the future state of experiences. The Hindus arrange the major events of their lives to reflect a shared belief in a subtle order of auspiciousness to discover a proper human attention. The main objective of structuring rituals is to cause a small part of history to follow a perfect path.
Hindus recommend self-controlling practices to cultivate their mental and physical state. A self-control technique will navigate, control, and creatively manipulate the inner world. Bhagavad Gita states that one can counter the impulsive character of actions to undertake the discipline of action using the faculties of action. The practice yokes human nature to people’s will through training in the sustained control of activities of the brain and needs of the body. Such a practice targets the successful course of the human body to maximize the potential in the world while refusing to stay in a trap.
Yoga is one the controlling practices that have complex related techniques applied to different goals in different traditions. Yoga incorporates speculative physiology, rejection of desire and attachment, pursuit of single-pointed consciousness, acquisition of supernatural powers, tantric alchemies, and self-technologies. The devotional connoisseurs such as the bhakti traditions use a religious tradition different from yoga emotional focus and intensification.
Sahoo (2014) states that that Hindu religious beliefs and practices in performing rituals of death precede Odisha ritual. The Hindus believe in the cyclical reincarnation of the soul, so the devotees perform rites to dispose of the body and rites to assist the departed soul to transmigrate to the next destination. Hindu death rituals in India follow a homogeneous pattern drawn from Vedas to vary with the sect, caste, religion, and family tradition. Bhagwad Gita states that the body is mortal while the soul is immortal.
After the death of the body, the soul moves to another realm of existence such as Swarga or Narka depending on one’s Karma in one’s lifetime. Hindus do not perform death rituals for the unmarried and suicide victims while the body is only disposed. The eligibility of the funeral rites creates the necessity of a married life and progenitors while warning people against committing suicide. Hindu performs the rites through a gender-bias framework where the eldest male in the family is the principal performer of the rites. Performance of the rites will ensure comfort to the bereaved family to stress in community living and interpersonal relationship in the society. The language in use for the funeral rites has socio-religious importance other that communicative function.
Different religions view with respect the natural aspect of life of birth and death. Man is a mortal being that eventually dies while the Hindu believes in the cyclical reincarnation of the soul. In essence, death is an end as well as the start of another. The Bhagwad Gita 2:27 states, “death is certain for the one who is born, and birth is certain for the one who dies.” As the physical body dies, the individual soul does not have a beginning and an end. Sahoo (2014) asserts that after demise of a person, depending on one’s Karma a soul will either pass to another reincarnation where it will continue in the cycles of birth and death or it will achieve mokshya to merge with the divine. A funeral rite followed or practiced by the society closely associate with the belief of people concerning life and death.
Hindus believe that a body can suffer Narka of after enjoying virtues in Swarga enter Pittruloka to await birth or reincarnation.
Buddhists and Hindus in Sri Lanka depict the end of the body as conceptualization of a journey. Hindu uses a polite language to ensure that all people including the dead affirm in a social interaction. That serves as a way to honor the dead. In mythology, realm of existence of the traditional progenitors of humanity as well as deceased was termed as pitruloka. The ceremony entails different funeral rites performed by the family members on specific days with the assistance of a priest. The family carries out prayers, bhajans, donations, sacred activities, and other religious rituals to bring peace to the departed soul.
Hindu interment rites are performed at a variety of stages linked to death that include at the approach of death, disposal of the body, twelve days after death to transform a departed soul to a preta, a memorial after one year to assist the departed soul reach pitru-loka, and an annual memorial to honor the ancestors. Funeral rites in Hindu custom serve the following purpose :( 1) to honor the deceased and assist the departed soul to have a smooth transition to the realm of ancestors. In that case, it is the duty of the immediate family to perform the funeral rites where the rights of inheritance often inter-relate. (2) To provide the bereaved family and their relatives time to mourn and show their grief in a particular way. Such a process will help to alleviate sorrow. (3) To highlight interconnectedness between life and death. The performance of the rites will eliminate fear of death to encourage virtuous living.
The final moments of life in the traditional setup consists of dying at home surrounded by the warmth and support of the family members. Family members take care of ill relatives as they sing hymns, pray, read scripture, and recite the thousand names of Lord Vishnu. Divine readings from the sacred books such as Ramayana, Bhagwad Gitas, and Vedas ensure the dying person’s mind focus on the divine prior to departure.
The ritual and practice in the Hindu studies have an extraordinary symbiosis of text to develop popular Hinduism. The aspects of religious texts consciously create a culture of practice that promises practical rewards, as well as punishments. The direct contact with actions and repercussions will mark the foundation of kama and artha as earthly rewards and dharma and moksa as heavenly rewards. Rituals in Hindu will also help to establish an actual socioeconomic reality of priests, practitioners, pilgrims, and scribes that frame the Puranas. The discourse of practice brings one to a nexus point of idea and reality to allow a proposed habitus that brings itself into actuality.

References

Frazier, J. (2012). Ritual and Practice in Hindu Studies. Journal Of Hindu Studies, 5(1), 1-9.
Frøystad, K. (2012). Divine Intersections: Hindu Ritual and the Incorporation of Religious Others. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 4(2), 1-21.
Sahoo, K. (2014). Rituals of death in Odisha: Hindu religious beliefs and socio-cultural practices. International Journal of Language Studies, 8(4), 29-48.