all this accompanied by various bowings with clasped hands. The worshipper then proceeds to offer a bit of fruit, or sweetmeat, or betel, and to sprinkle the images with pinches of sandal paste and coloured rice; and perhaps a few flowers, sometimes also waving before them a bit of lighted camphor, at the same time ringing a little bell or striking a small gong. The whole is concluded by three times walking round the spot (pradakshanam) and by prostration (sashtanga namaskaram). The whole ceremony, perhaps does not occupy as long in the doing as in the telling, and when it is over the things are replaced in the box, which is then put away in its own proper niche. Among certain sections of Hindus this midday worship is somewhat different. The lingam worshippers, for instance, merely light a little lamp, and taking in the left hand the lingam from its silver or copper box which is suspended from their neck, perform to it some slight worship and wave towards it from the food which is about to be consumed. Of course all these things differ slightly amongst different sections of the people, but for all intents and purposes this description may be taken as sufficiently representative. It may also be said that this midday worship is all the regular worship that the Hindu woman ordinarily engages in from day to day. At night, when she lights the family lamp, the good housewife will make obeisance to the flame with closed hands repeating the following Sanskrit verse :— दीपं ज्योतिः परब्रह्म दीपं ज्योतिः परायणं । संध्यादीप नमोऽस्तुते ॥ The flame of this lamp is the Supreme God. The flame of this lamp is the abode of the Supreme. By this flame sin is destroyed. O thou light of the evening we praise thee. The woman does no worship at the time of the evening meal as do the men; she simply says, as a kind of grace before meat, the words Govinda! Govinda! (a name of Vishnu) or Mahādēva ! Mahādeva! (an appellation of Siva) as the case may be, before putting the first morsel into her mouth. As in Christian countries the good mother takes her little ones and teaches them her holy faith according to their capacity to understand, and also teaches them to pray at her knee, so the Hindu mother tells her children stories of the gods she has learned from the Rāmāyanam and the Mahabharatam and other religious books, and at worship time, when the little bell is sounded, the children are taught to assemble, and, solemnly placing their hands together, make obeisance to the gods. It will be seen that practically a Hindu woman's worship is ordinarily confined to the brief midday service described above. Even this she is only supposed to do on sufferance, after having obtained the consent of her husband. A passage on this subject is quoted from the Padma Purana: पतिरेव प्रियः स्त्रीणां आत्मानंच खभर्तार मेकपिंडमनीषया । भर्तुराज्ञां विना नैव कंचिद्धर्मं समाचरेत् ॥ The husband is the beloved of the wife. He is more to her than all the gods. Be it known are one person. Without the consent of her husband Any kind of worship she must not perform. and With the consent of her husband a wife may, perhaps does, go on a short pilgrimage without him when he is unable to accompany her; but this is very seldom. And also, strictly with his consent, she may perform and keep vows, as for instance, to do without salt in her food for a stated period or to abstain from milk or various kinds of eatables for a given time, all with the object of obtaining something desiredwealth, or children, or deliverance from disease, for herself or any one dear to her. We have seen that, apart from her husband, the woman has no religious status whatever, and practically very little even with him. We now come to the important question as to how all this affects her state after death. Does the union and interdependence of husband and wife continue after death, and how can the one affect the other? There is good authority for the monstrous assertion, which however is, in itself, exactly in accordance with the whole of Hindu legislation and custom, as far as can be clearly made out, that whilst the good deeds of the wife can materially benefit the husband, as to his eternal state, nothing that he does, or can do, will have any effect upon her; she stands or falls by her own merits alone. If she has been a bad woman, she must expiate her sins by numerous transmigrations, and she may be cast into the purgatorial hell. I am aware that this matter is sometimes put in another light by writers on the subject. Ward, for instance, says: "The merits and demerits of husband and wife are transferable to either in a future state: if a wife perform many meritorious works, and the husband die first, he will enjoy heaven as the fruit of his wife's virtuous deeds; and if the wife be guilty of many wicked actions, and the husband die first, he will suffer for the sins of his wife. In the apprehensions of a Hindu, therefore, marriage ought to be a very serious business." (Vol. I. p. 184.) Though I can find no authority for the first clause of this statement, the quotation from Brihaspati already given, shows that there may have been some such idea in ancient Vedic days. Howbeit, a Pundit friend says that whilst this quotation may express the state of things in a former Yuga, it certainly does not apply to this degenerate period of the world's history ; and the following, which is taken from the code of Parasara, the most modern of the three great codes, speaks to the contrary. The code of Parasara belongs to the present age, or Kaliyuga, and is of very great authority. योषित्कृतापराधेन पुरुषस्य यथाप्रत्यवायः तथापुरुषा पतिलोकं न सा याति ब्राह्मणी या सुरां पिबेत् । इहैव सा शुनी भूत्वा या ब्राह्मणी दुष्टा भवति आस्योल्का पिशाची भवति ॥ We have here a question put by Parasara, and the answer he himself gives. Why, it may be asked, is the wife not benefited by the good deeds of her husband just as the husband becomes hell-doomed by the evil deeds of his wife? The idea that the wife can be so benefited must not for a moment be entertained. In support of this he gives a quotation from Yagnavalkya, a celebrated Rishi, to the following effect : To her husbands world she will not go. Whatever brahmin woman drinks fermented liquor. Upon this Parasara makes the following comment :— Whatever Brahmin woman becomes bad, she will by the gods be kept out of the ancestral heaven. Such a woman, being without merit, will be born again on this earth as a demon with a mouth emitting flames of fire. The Pundits of the present day appear to take these quotations as a proof that a bad woman cannot be benefited by the good deeds of her husband, and this seems to be their belief on the subject. If the woman is a dutiful wife she may obtain a share of the celestial bliss of her husband and also her good deeds may be reckoned to his account even though he is not a good man; but if she be a bad woman, nothing that her husband, or any one else can do will be for her of any avail. We now come to deal with the Hindu woman as a widow, for her condition as regards religion becomes materially changed after the death of her husband. Although the widow is precluded from taking any part whatever in the ordinary family rites and ceremonies, and although she may be reckoned as dead to all social life, still she can, according to Hinduism, materially assist her husband after his death and by her prayers and good deeds hasten his final beatitude. It is laid down that the chief way in which she can do this is by ascending his funeral pile and burning herself alive with his dead body. Happily the Government will no longer allow these religious murders and suicides, but there is no doubt whatever that they were formerly carried out to an enormous extent, and, if the strong hand of British law were removed, it is most probable that these monstrous cruelties would be again perpetrated. A quotation on this subject is here taken from Ward's book on the Mythology of the Hindus; he takes it from the writings of Angira, a saint of the first and most holy age (Krutayugam). Other passages from Hindu authors of authority might be quoted, but this one is enough to show what the Hindu religion says on this point as to the sacred duty of women. |