BIASED INDIAN MEDIA KNOWN AS ANTI HINDU IGNORES SOCIAL REVOLUTION
===================================================
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JE02Df01.html
GREAT HINDU REVOLUTION - Women at the temple door
By Gagandeep Kaur
PUNE, India - This year, Preeti Agarwal, a 30-year-old housewife,
broke tradition during February rituals to wor****p the birth of
Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge.
For the first time, she invited a female priest to her home to conduct
the puja, or ceremony, to mark the auspicious day when children learn
to read and write their first letters or words. Families dress in
yellow - symbolizing spring and the blossoming of mustard flowers -
and gather to pray for the blessing of knowledge in an elaborate
ceremony set against a background of chants and drumbeats.
In the past, Agarwal has followed customary practice and invited a
male priest - known as a pandit - to observe the tradition.
"Most of the time, a pandit would be so busy that he would just chant
the mantras and finish his job and leave," says Agarwal. "He wouldn't
explain the meaning of the mantras or the meaning behind the rituals.
This is not the case with women priests. I first saw a woman
conducting religious rituals at a friend's place and was impressed. I
decided that the next time there was a puja at my place, I will invite
a woman priest only."
This year, the puja was different, she says. Her seven-year-old
daughter asked lots of questions and Sunita Jo****, the female priest
who conducted it, answered them all patiently.
Agarwal lives in Pune, a university city in the western, progressive
part of India some 190 kilometers south of Mumbai where women are
joining the priesthood even as they are barred from entering temples
in other parts of the country. Pune led the first efforts in India to
draw girls into school and educate them, and was also one of the first
cities to allow widows to remarry, a concept that was once largely
absent in traditional Hindu culture.
Although a few women have trained as pandits in the southern city of
Hyderabad, Pune is on the vanguard. While Hinduism does not
technically bar women from becoming priests, it is not accepted as
standard practice in most of India. Even in Pune the idea is novel,
and people have taken time to accept it. Women who have taken up the
work have faced strong resistance from male pandits.
Formal training in women's school Pune's revolution to allow women
into the priesthood began in the early 1980s, when Shankarrao Thatte -
owner of a premier marriage hall in the city, the Udyan Karyalaya -
launched the Shankar Seva Samiti, a school to train female priests.
The casual - and often hurried - approach of the male priests toward
the rituals and ceremonies prompted Thatte to start four-month
training courses for women. Today, Pune has two schools for female
priests, Thatte's Shankar Seva Samiti and Jnana Prabodhini.
Vishwanath Gurjar, who heads the priesthood division of Jnana
Prabodhini, says that women have an equal right to moksha, the Hindu
concept of the liberation of the soul from the continual cycle of
birth, life, death and rebirth. According to him, there is nothing in
the scriptures to suggest that women are not equal to men.
Several years ago, according to news re****ts, an im****tant priest,
Shankarcharya of Puri, denounced the induction of women into
priesthood. He felt that the Vedas were a male domain and should
remain so. However, Shankarcharya's disapproval has made no dent on
the enthusiasm of the women priests.
"Nowhere is it written that women cannot recite the Vedas. In fact,
there were female scholars like Ghosha, Lopamudra, Romasha and Indrani
in the Vedic period and women philosophers like Sulabha, Maitreyi and
Gargi in the Upanishadic period," 52-year-old Vasanti Khadilkar was
quoted as saying at the time.
According to Khadilkar, there is a verse from the
Bhihadaranyakopanishad which translates as "a well-to-do man always
thinks that his daughter should be a scholar".
Headmaster Gurjar agrees: "It is only the mindset of people that stops
them from accepting women in certain roles." His school in Pune
started out with three-month courses for female priests and has since
expanded to eight months. So far, 12 cl***** of 30 to 35 students each
have completed the course.
Personal interests, professional gains Interest in the scriptures and
rituals of wor****p are generally the inspiration for women to study
the priesthood, says Gurjar. Some do it for their personal education,
others out of interest in the profession. Pandits earn a fee for each
ritual they perform, ranging between US$1.25 and $3, but customers
also tip them a little extra if they are happy with the rites.
Sandhya Kulkarni, a scholar and purohit - another word for pandit -
started practicing professionally some 10 years ago. She has completed
a doctorate in Sanskrit, the classical language in which the most
im****tant Hindu scriptures are written.
"Initially I decided to study scriptures because I was very interested
in the Sanskrit language," she says. "Later I developed a genuine
interest in the priesthood and decided to take it up as a profession.
Apart from that I also felt that I should not blindly follow the
rituals but should know the reasoning behind them."
Hinduism is the world's oldest major religion and contains a vast body
of scriptures, which contemplate mythology, philosophy and theology
and expound on the practice of religious living. The im****tant
scriptures include the four Vedas, as well as the Manusmriti,
Ramayana, Bhagvad Gita and Mahabharta. Primary tenets include moksha
and karma, the belief that actions have subsequent reactions. The
divine takes many forms and rituals are often observed at home on a
daily basis.
Women have made headway in routine religious rituals like marriage;
the thread ceremony, a rite of passage for boys; or the house-warming
ceremony. But rituals and ceremonies related to death still continue
to be observed only by male pandits. Kulkarni is one of the few female
priests who has conducted death rites, partly because women are by
tradition not allowed to enter the cremation ground and cremation
itself is done by the male members of the family.
Shortage of men for festivals Initially, women were invited to conduct
rituals only when male pandits were unavailable during the hectic
festival season, from the end of August to November. Many times female
priests found the appointment canceled because an elderly member of
the family objected to them.
"There is a marked difference in the attitude of the people in the
last three to four years," says Kulkarni. "There is an increased
acceptance of women priests in the city now. In many instances, they
are preferred over male priests. Women do it with a sense of mission
and that is the main difference. People appreciate that we explain the
meaning of chants and mantras."
Their acceptance as pandits has been eased by a recognition that the
priesthood did not come to them by inheritance, but rather as a result
of genuine interest and hard work to prove their worthiness. When men
inherit the job they do not necessarily receive an education or
training, and there is a general disaffection with male pandits among
some Indians who believe they take the work for granted.
Female priests do face some cultural barriers. For instance, a
menstruating woman is considered impure and is traditionally not
allowed to enter a temple or to take part in rituals. The female
pandits keep that in mind and don't conduct any rituals during those
days.
Madhuri Karavade has been a purohit for the last seven years.
"My in-laws are very traditional and I didn't know much about the
rituals so I decided to come here to study," Karavade says. "I liked
it so much that I took it up professionally."
She says her most satisfying moment came when she was able to conduct
the upnayan rite, which initiates a young boy into Hinduism. Her
ceremony included both boys and girls.
Gagandeep Kaur is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi.
(Republished with permission from Women's eNews a prize-winning, non-
profit daily Internet-based news service covering issues of particular
concern to women and their allies. Copyright 2008 Women's eNews.)
|
