Hinduism without ethics obsolete
THE TIME for observing the Kavady ceremony is upon us. Kavady is observed in South Africa twice every year. Firstly in the month of Chitrai, which is the first month of the year for Tamil people and it coincides with April and then again in the month of Thai, which coincides with January. So Chitraparvam and Thaipoosam are the two Kavady ceremonies observed every year.
The first point to note in this religious ceremony is that unlike religions that make the claim that God revealed Himself to them to bring into existence their religion, other communities had to rely on their own resources for their religious perceptions. Just as Jesus is the Son of God for Christians, so is Muruga the son of Lord Siva and Parvathi for South Indian Hindus.
There are many songs of devotion directed at Muruga and several ceremonies observed in which He is worshipped. There are also many temples in South Africa dedicated to the worship of Muruga just as there are many temples in several other parts of the world where Tamil people now live.
All Muruga temples in South Africa were built after 1860. They exist to this day as do the ceremonies that revere this spiritual ideal. The concept of Muruga is limited because Muruga was brought into existence through a series of Hindu scriptures known as the Puranas. Stories about Muruga and the Kavady ritual are recorded in the more specific Skanda Purana.
Skanda Purana is largely the product of the Tamil mind that took account of the conditions that prevailed in Tamil Nadu in India when they were composed.
The Puranas consist of stories that were told to propagate religious teachings. Unlike Hinduism’s greatest spiritual ideal Bhagavan Sri Krishna, whose historical presence was responsible for the religious wisdom rendered in the Bhagavad Gita, Muruga never gave us any moral and ethical teachings because his very existence is of purely mythological origin.
The Hindu religion has its origins in two sources: philosophical inquiry and popular mythology. Many are the stories that were told in Hindu religious history to teach religious truths.
Kavady places emphasis upon ritual ceremonies.
These are best seen at the temple on Kavady day rather than described because they are the products of the South Indian ritual system.
Suffice it to say that it consists of the lighting of a fire for worship, lighting of sacred oil lamps and penance in the form of the piercing of the body with needles and other forms of body torture in the hope that Muruga will bless devotees who undergo great penance.
People in the Tamil community participate in the ceremonies associated with the worship of Muruga.
There are many songs sung in His praise. One aspect of the ceremony is circumambulation where devotees walk around the temple that represents a pilgrimage. The original ceremony marked the long walks that people had to undertake to reach the Muruga temple they revered.
However all people who take an interest in Muruga have the obligation to realise that worship of Muruga has no religious basis because unlike the historical Bhagavan Sri Krishna, who gave us the Bhagavad Gita, Muruga spoke no spiritual truths of substantive religious reasoning.
Bhagavan Sri Krishna’s teachings were delivered for the benefit of all humanity.
They contain many universally valid spiritual truths that all mankind ought to appreciate as they are truths that refer to the religious teachings of great religious intelligence.
Krishna’s teachings were not intended to bring into existence a religion for the benefit of Hindus only.
Consider such religions as Christianity for the benefit of Christians only and Islam for the benefit of Muslims only. Hindus have the responsibility to appreciate that their religion came into existence thousands of years ago as a result of the search for God. Hinduism is the result of the search for the God who is the God of all humanity. God never was and never will be the God of Hindus only.
All deities that Hindus speak of such as Muruga, Durga, Luxmi, Sarasvathi or any other are never God Himself or Herself. Deities represent God. To think of God in a non-philosophical way is impossible; hence the birth of Muruga and a host of other deities. So whether one is South Indian, North Indian, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu or Gujarathi, Hindus are spiritual descendants of the Rishis, who gave us the Vedas in which the first efforts were made to know if there is God, the God of all humanity.
The Kavady ceremony (never refer to it as a festival) is a product of Tamil thinking that brought it into existence in Tamil Nadu several hundred years ago.
Attendance at Kavady will reveal all the rituals that are associated with devotion and worship that is primarily directed at reverence for Muruga.
The Kavady itself started originally as a bamboo pole to which were attached offerings that were made to Muruga. The bamboo pole was replaced by a proper wooden Kavady that was carried on the shoulder of a devotee in the ways devotees carried wooden poles on their shoulders when having to walk long distances to reach their destination.
The worship of Muruga has no future. It should have been brought to an end many years ago. The reason for its perpetuation is the absence of a decent Hindu education programme.
People who participate in the ceremony and more especially temple authorities have a duty to ask themselves if this kind of religion is still relevant for the present time, more than 150 years after their arrival in South Africa. The Kavady ceremony is seldom if ever accompanied by a sermon in which the concept of God and true religious behaviour is ever discussed.
Almost no emphasis is ever placed on moral, ethical and other Hindu teachings. In the light of the fact that many modern innovations exist in the form of such institutions as the Ramakrishna Mission, the Krishna Consciousness Movement, Divine Life Society, Chinmaya Mission, the Sai Baba Movement, Saiva Siddhantha Sangum and others that take more intelligent views of religious thought and behaviour, Kavady and Muruga no longer have relevance. Those who carry Kavady must face the fact that this kind of Hinduism is now very obsolete.