Compiled by London swaminathan

Date:13 July 2016

Post No. 2968

Time uploaded in London :– 17-01

( Thanks for the Pictures)

DON’T REBLOG IT AT LEAST FOR A WEEK!  DON’T USE THE PICTURES; THEY ARE COPYRIGHTED BY SOMEONE.

(for old articles go to tamilandvedas.com OR swamiindology.blogspot.com)

Following piece is an interesting excerpt from a 100-year-old book written by a Muslim scholar: –

“It is a Girl! Girl! Cries the nurse. As she is not a boy you will be prepared to learn that the same sort of rejoicings does not usher her into this world of sunshine and storm as would greet the arrival of a boy. Why is this? Does that mean that the birth of a girl is supposed to be a calamity perhaps, speaking only of the unregenerate, unimaginative classes, it may be so; but you must not on that account put down the Hindus as an ungallant race, insensible to the charms of the gentler sex.

In their mythology there is the story of the churning of the ocean by gods and demons; and of the fourteen gems they produced, none was more valuable, none more dazzling, than the bright, smiling, tender-eyed Sri – Sri, the lotus-born Goddess of Fortune, wealth and beauty, the type of Indian womanhood. On the other hand, we must remember that a on implies much more in Hindu ideas and Hindu law than he does in other social systems. A son in Hindu parlance is often called the giver of immortality. The idea is that the parent never attains to the higher life after he completes his life in this world, unless he has left a son who can perform his funeral obsequies and give offerings to the gods, which alone give him admission amongst the immortals. Thus it will be understood that the advent of a son means something that affects the whole of the immortal life of a man after he finishes his worldly existence.

The advent of a girl to a certain extent also means that, but it means for other people; because the girl when she is married goes into another family, and all her virtues and all her greatness are, as it were imputed to that other family of which she becomes a member. Therefore, to the ordinary Hindu family, the birth of a girl, irrespective of how much they may in their frailty have wished for a girl, is not an event off the same importance, or an occasion for the same rejoicings, as would usher in the birth of a boy.

After the sweets are distributed and the congratulations have been tendered to the boy-husband and his parents, there is a horde of dependents whose claims have to be satisfied in hard cash. There is another set of people who have the privilege of looking at the child’s face- at the price of some gifts to the nurse and members of the family. He law of compensation is so strong in Indian social life. Wherever gifts have to be offered, gifts are received to a nearly equal amount. The successful social leader is the one who contrives that balance of gifts is always in his or her own favour.

Hindus – Astrological Race!

The Hindus are an extremely astrological race. They can do nothing in life without consulting the stars. Perhaps this partly accounts for the want of punctuality noted as a glaring defect in Indian character. There is an old story of a stately Raja who was invited to a party on a certain day and arrived two days afterwards. It was not that he had missed the train, for he travelled with a train of chariots, horses, and elephants. The fact was that at the time when he should have started, the ruling planet was unfavourable and he had to wait until the wicked planet had got out of his way and a luckier planet had come to rule.

The Sun, Mars and Saturn, are unlucky planets (the sun being a planet in Hindu astronomy), while Venus, the Moon, Mercury and Jupiter are lucky planets.

The Hindu almanac shows for each day of the week minute sub divisions of time which have different astrological characters. One ‘ghari’ is good for business, another is mortal, for it will kill you if you challenge it. A third is fraught with a happy issue to all you undertake, and a fourth with affliction. There are some gharis which are neutral; you may do things if you are compelled to do them, but not if you are free. Hence in some circumstances compulsion is welcomed; for the compulsion converts the ill luck into luck for the person compelled – but woe betide the person who compels, for doubles his own sorrow!

Such being the ideas that affect life, it is most important that the precise time of girl’s birth should be carefully noted, for on it will depend her name, her marriage, and her whole future destiny. Her horoscope is made out and ruling planet and the cast of the stars carefully determined and recorded. Not only must the favourable planet be known, as pointing out her gifts and virtues, but the star in opposition is equally important, because on that would depend her conduct towards those whom she has any reason to suspect as enemies. Then a number of minor stars and asterisms will have to be noted as they aid or warp the influence of the guiding stars and planets. When the configuration of the heavens at the moment of birth is completely and accurately recorded, the Brahma or the Pandit will be able to construct exactly the history of that child from the moment of its birth to the it will have to be called away. Is such history true?

That reminds me the story of a man who was to have died at forty. In his forty fifth year he was still alive, and suspecting that there was something untoward in the heavens, he sent for the learned Pandit who had read the horoscope and asked him to account for the discrepancy. The Pandit was a cynic and answered by a question, “What did you pay for your horoscope?”

Fortune-telling apart, the horoscope has important practical results. No name can be given to the child until the horoscope has been scanned and studied.

What is in a name?- why the whole history of a Hindu woman.

Just as the stars dictate her destiny they also dictate her name. it is true that a name is often informally given which is a pet name, and in fact most of the Hindu women have two sets of names. One name is the name by which they are vulgarly called, but the other name, the true name, is the astrological name, the name which you must know before you are able to reason about her qualities or about her destinies, either In this world or in the next. This ordinary name is the apparently important name, but the ‘rash’i name does not figure in actual life because it is too sacred to be defiled by daily use. The ‘rashi’ name is known to the parents, of course, and the priest, but not to the child itself until she is grown up sufficiently to understand it and sometimes not at all.

The giving of a name is attended with ceremonies, religious and social and the exact time when it must be given is determined by astrological rules the auspicious moment having been chosen, the girl grows and thrives – not only as the child of the family, but as the child of the whole neighbourhood. The children are gregarious in India, and except for very small babies, who ride astride the mother’s wats, the office of motherhood is usually in commission”.

Source : Life and Labour of the People of India by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Barrister at Law, London, 1907

–subham–