Page 269 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes novel items. Often these “coffee houses” serve both vegetarian and non-vegetarian foods, and Brahmin
youths are found experimenting with omelettes and other forbidden foods.
As a result of the spread of education among all sections of the population, traditional ideas of purity
are giving way to the rules of hygiene. Purity and cleanliness are often at loggerheads; I have heard
many an educated Brahmin expressing his disgust at the dirt and unhygienic character of “pure”
clothes worn by the orthodox. Brahmin cooks are often found wearing or using for handling hot
vessels, dirty clothes which have been rinsed but not cleaned with soap or sterilized. The unsanitary
conditions prevailing in pilgrim centers is a frequent subject of conversation among educated Hindus,
who are more conscious of the drains flowing into the Ganges than of the river’s holiness. This is not,
however, the only tendency; educated Hindus are also found rationalizing traditional behaviour.
Purity, according to them, is nothing more than hygiene, and it was brought within the field of
religious behaviour only to make people more particular about it.
Any consideration of changed attitudes toward pollution must note the great popularity of education
among Brahmin women in Mysore. In the old days, women were extremely particular about pollution,
and the kitchen was the heart of the pollution system. The modern educated housewife, on the other
hand, is much less particular about pollution and more conscious of hygiene and nutrition. Many
observe rules of pollution only when they are living with their parents or in-laws. They become lax
about the rules when they form separate households; a punctilious observance of pollution rules is
not easy when there is only one adult woman in the house, unlike in a traditional joint family. Even
in the latter, pollution rules are observed more strictly when there are old women who are widows
and whose lives are centered in the kitchen and in the domestic altar (usually located in or near the
kitchen).
Another and a potent source of criticism of orthodox Hinduism’s obsession with pollution and ritualism
lay in the nineteenth century movement to reinterpret traditional religion. It was essentially a
puritanical movement in which an attempt was made to distinguish the “essence” of Hinduism from
its historical accretions. Ritualism and pollution rules were interpreted as extrinsic to true religion,
and as even wrong, while devotion and simplicity were of the essence. There was support for such a
view in the Bhagavad Gita and in the lives of the saints.
Process of Secularization
Another area which has been affected by the secularization process is life-cycle ritual. There has been
an abbreviation of the rituals performed at various life-cycle crises, while at the same time their
purely social aspects have assumed greater importance than before. Ceremonies such as name-giving
(namakarana), the first tonsure (chaula) and the annual ritual of changing the sacred thread (upakarma)
are beginning to be dropped. For girls, the attainment of puberty is no longer marked by the elaborate
ritual that characterized it a few decades ago. The shaving of a Brahmin widow’s head, as part of the
funeral rite for her dead husband, has also largely disappeared, and among the educated, widow
marriage is no longer strongly disapproved.
Rituals are not only omitted or abbreviated but are also telescoped with others, though this seems to
be rarer than the other two phenomena. Thus the wedding ritual may be combined with the donning
of the sacred thread at the beginning of the ceremony, and with the consummation ritual (garbhadana)
at the end. In fact, only funeral ritual and the annual shraddha continue to be performed with the same
strictness as before, though even here changes seem to have occurred with respect to the kin groups
participating in the ritual. The scattering of agnates over a wide area is one of the factors responsible
for this change.
The manner in which the wedding ritual has been abbreviated is interesting. Formerly, a full-blown
Brahmin wedding would last between five and seven days. Now, however, much of the non-Sanskritic
and folk ritual, traditionally the exclusive preserve of women, is being dropped. There is even an
increasing tendency to compress Sanskritic ritual into a few hours on a single day. The crucial religious
rituals such as kanyadana (gift of the virgin) and saptapadi (seven steps) are witnessed only by the
concerned kindred, while the main body of guests attends the secularly important wedding reception.
At the latter the bridal couple sit on a settee at the back of a hall, both in their best clothes, the groom
generally sporting a woollen suit, usually a gift from his father-in-law. The guests are introduced to

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