Rituals, Dancing, Divine Food and a Bryan Adams sing along

A few things happened this weekend, I will exposit them chronologically by day.

On Friday evening I accompanied Veena (fellow abroad student), to a temple nearby where a kind of festival was going on, and they have revived some old practices of temple dancing that were banned from temple due to some other historical developments. This marks my second visit to a Hindu temple, as well as the most pleasurable. Prior to the rituals in the temple, there was a guest performance outside of a particular form of classical Indian dance, that everyone gathers to watch, and following it were the temple dances which had more religious roots and derivation. 

The newly revived ritual dances were set up in a very systematic way, beginning at the middle of the temple, circling around it and returning to the center, having a performance at various particular spots that correspond to a deity. The idea is that the dancing is a kind of narrative or descriptive presentation of the deity that it is directed towards, and the observers ideally are treating it as a ceremony of prayer. So I and a group of Miami students that came later apart from my arrival, were able to observe the ceremony which is no short process, but an interesting cultural experience nonetheless. 

After the dances were finished, they brought out the idol (which I prefer to call Icon, as it more accurately describes the roll of the "idol") and marched with it, stopping after so many paces as a dancer performed in front of it before the icon marched forward (reminded me of David bringing the Ark of the Covenant back to Israel, where after so many paces they stopped and worshipped through music and dance before moving forward again), until it came to a place outside where they sat the icon down, performed a ritual of blessing and then marched the icon back to the temple where each dancer one by one circled it while holding a pot of oil with a lit flame. They then returned the deity to its resting place, and proceeded to perform a final ritual of blessing. 

This ritual seemed to be more of a typical one that a devotee would undergo in a normal visit to temple. Where the priest brings out a flame, the warmth of which you are supposed to feel with your hands and touch your face, then blessed water that they put in your hands and you drink, then a metal cylinder kind of hollow object that has designs and carvings on it they briefly place over your head, which represents the feet of God blessing your head. Granted I am not aware of all the symbolisms of these ritual actions, and it would probably be exhaustive to expound upon them justly anyways, so I am just trying to describe the ceremony as I saw it. 

On this particular evening, I did not participate in the above ritual of blessing, as I did not know what is expected of the practitioner, and I personally feel as if I am being very disrespectful, and perhaps even blasphemous if I undergo a ritual having no idea what to do, let alone not knowing the meaning. So I sat that one out, I did however, participate in the partaking of the blessed food (Prasad). When this takes place everyone is handed some leaves that have been pressed and sown together with straw, and the priests come out with rice, and another sweet substance that I do not know the name of, and place a portion onto your leaf-plates, and you eat with your hands the food that has been blessed by god (prasad). It was very tasty, of course at first I was questioning the fact that it was dished out to me by the guys hands, and who knows where these leaves came from, but you just don't refuse 'divine' food that a holy man is offering you, you just take it with thanks. So I did, and it was very delicious, not just plain rice, but a yellow rice that had a spice to it; god makes a good rice I suppose. I very much enjoyed the experience of sitting in an obscure temple in India and eating Prasad with my hands off of a dry leaf plate that no doubt someone hand sown together, not something you do everyday. Unless of course you are a Hindu, of which I am not. 

The dancing itself was of course interesting, but it was probably more interesting to those who enjoy dance. I do not consider myself one of those people, as I do not go out of my way to watch any kind of dancing, be it ball room or dry sex humping in a club. I can appreciate the cultural significance of something like classical Indian dance (like when a particular story I am familiar with is being depicted), however beyond that I cannot have too much of an interest in it; for that, I would need to have an interest in dance itself. 

The temple was set up in such a way that in two corners there were deities inside the 'closet' like space that they are usually kept in, that periodically opens up at the appropriate times, and in the center was the main deity of the temple. It kind of reminded of the "Holiest of Holies" that you would find in the center of the Hebrew temple of the Old Testament, where it is located at the center and only the Holy priests can actually enter in to that space; the same seemed true for the space that this main icon was in, as it was encased in a closet-like space as well, and only the priests could pervade that space where the holy deity is occupying. So the layout of the temple seemed significant, and the same is true for the Old Testament temple as well. 

So while I find the witnessing of religious ritual to be interesting, it is not my area of interest when looking at any religion's ideology. Taking Hinduism as an example, I have interest in the philosophies you find coming from thinkers who happened to be 'Hindu', and I see these philosophies to be a separate thing almost altogether from ritual. To believe that a ritual or recited prayer entertains a spiritual dimension which causes your material situation to be changed, as a result of performing the ritual, is to have a mystical belief, and a purely mystical belief is I feel, irrational. Of course there is the effect that ritual has on the mental state of the person, which then effects their attitude and their situation, but that is different from believing that the ritual itself is responsible for a material change. 

The philosophers of the East however, are occupied with metaphysical views, epistemological systems of "how do you know..." and what "what is knowledge", and then ethical philosophy, all of which are centered around knowledge and not ritual. It is clear then, as confirmed by Dr. Prasad in the Philosophy department here, these philosophers didn't take ritual very seriously, as I don't think that any pursuer of knowledge would. In fact these philosophers would say that liberation is not attained from ritual at all, it doesn't bridge the divide, but knowledge bridges that divide, whereas ignorance furthers it. To me, if religious ritual/prayer is not kept in its proper symbolic place then it can perpetuate ignorance, which you see happening in various kinds of religious outlooks.

So when it comes to ceremony, for me, it is just that and nothing more. Nothing more than a physical experience the practitioner (if it is religious in nature) undergoes to have some particular kind of feeling or emotional state. These states vary greatly in nature, ranging from the kind of person who performs ritual with the belief that it effects an unknown spiritual dimension, to the person who performs ritual without any belief in the spiritual or God at all and simply enjoys the feeling of nostalgia one gets from practicing age old tradition they inherited. The latter is more legitimate and honest a reason to be a practitioner of ceremony/ritual, as it is not treated as a methodical means to attain a supposed "greater" knowledge of something spiritual. It seems to me, that most educated Hindu practitioners take this latter stance when it comes to the practice of the religion, as being Hindu does not only amount to religious belief; as you could be an atheist-materialist, and be a practitioner of Hinduism it seems. So I see no problem with performing any religious ritual for the sake of experiencing inherited tradition, the problem I have lies in the purporting of ritual to be a method for attaining knowledge, or that some supernatural truth lies beyond it that the practitioner effects through repeating a prayer, taking communion, or reciting a mantra. 

Although for me personally, I have never been one to enjoy something simply because it is my inherited tradition either, and tradition for tradition's sake for me is a waste of time. It's one of those things that I want to ask "why..." and then someone says "just because...", which needless to say does not satisfy me; and so apart from having cultural experiences of ritual (be it religious, or a wedding ceremony), I do not care much for it, and much time could very well be saved without it (especially in weddings, there is much "blah blah" that could be cut out). And when it is supposed that a ritual is a method for attaining a kind of Truth, I must oppose that notion and not simply be apathetic towards it, as I am with ritual for the sake of inherited tradition. 

The next day, Miami kids went to a museum, which was okay. Not much to tell about it, and no pictures were allowed. Following it some others wanted to go back to the same temple where they were having some vendors there for the festival they were having, so a few of us stopped there with the Pappus. The little market was less than impressive, so I and another girl from Miami went into the temple with Dr. Pappu, and he told a priest we were students here to study, and so he wanted us to experience the ritual. I was still less than comfortable doing it, but Dr. Pappu insisted, so I suppose it wasn't a big deal, and my feeling of disrespect in not being fully aware of the ritual meaning was probably something I was conjuring; though it was still legitimate, and I was probably one of the few who gave a second thought to it the night before, where several of the other students just jumped in and performed it. So I felt the heat of the flame, drank the water, and had my head blessed by God's feet, as we were standing right in front of the space where the deity was; an interesting experience of course, and it was nice that the temple was so welcoming both nights we were there. They insisted that we all have dinner on Friday night that they were serving, and made sure we experienced everything as much as possible. At the first temple we went to as a group, a very large one, I did not feel so welcome there for some reason, and did not get a kind vibe from it; not that I felt I shouldn't be there, it was just a large temple with a lot of people whereas this was a small one and was more welcoming. One could draw an analogy here between small temples seeming to be very welcoming as a opposed to large ones, and how small Christian churches seem to be more friendly and welcoming as opposed to large ones.

This was pretty much my weekend, the only other thing to report is that last night I watched Shawshank Redemption; which was severely overdue. It was a good movie, and the reason it has been regarded as a classic is very clear; I mean...Morgan Freeman...enough said. 

Oh I almost forgot, we also had a little bon fire outside, where some other Indian students joined. One had a guitar who is learning, and someone volunteers me to play it. So I do, and one of the Indian guys asks if I knew "Summer of 69" by Brian Adams. I don't actually know the song, but I remember an MxPx cover of it very vaguely, so I just played the chords according to the melody. So me and some random Indian dudes have a little brian Adams sing along while sitting around a small fire in Hyderabad, India...not exactly something I foresaw happening, ever. So I just played random songs, they also recognized Free Bird. There are two bands I have noticed Indians being fond of, Coldplay and Linkin Park. The former I have no problem with at all, the latter however, can't say I am a fan. I also overheard that Iron Maiden was performing in Bangalore...go figure.