True Shraddha and Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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True Shraddha and Mahatma Gandhi

 

A friend sends from Rangoon rupees twenty-five as donation for the propaganda of the spinning-wheel and writes: My father died on the 18th April 1927 at Tanojre (South India) while I was there on a short leave. When I was confronted with the question of “Sixteenth Day Ceremony”, a slavish, meaningless imitation of shraddha, I resolutely refused to abide by the desire of my relatives simply because I have no belief in it as it prevails today. I do not believe in a departed soul waiting in Pitruloka or some such other unseen places for water or rice balls. Nor can I see any reason to attach any importance to the rites performed by a mercenary priest and in a language which is Greek both to me and the officiating priest. In short the whole affair seems to be a hoax designed to be practiced on the religious susceptibilities of the people. But I can believe in shraddha as a thing offered in piety and devotion with a charitable intention. From a commonsense point of view the main principle and the original purpose of this ceremony ought to be charity. As you say in Young India dated 24-2- 1927, “only two classes of people are entitled to charity and none else the Brahmin who possesses nothing and whose business it is to spread holy learning, and the cripple and the blind.” Our great immortal sage, Thiruvalluvar has said: “A Brahmin is that sannyasi who has an overflowing love towards all living creatures.” Because I could not conceive of a man who has a better claim than you and a more charitable purpose than that of the spinning-wheel, I have sent you this amount.

There is also another way of commemorating the memory of one’s own parents. The same sage Thiruvalluvar has again said: “The gratitude of a son to his father must consist in the son conducting himself in the world in such a way as to excite from the world the approbation that his father must have performed a great tapasya to beget this son.” I may add that I have this ideal at my heart. I have omitted from the letter several personal references. Though I have performed shraddha ceremonies myself in my youth, I have not been able to understand their religious usefulness. This letter is not the first of its kind I have received. But not being able to understand the hidden meaning, if any, of the practices which are almost universal in Hinduism, I have hitherto refrained from dealing with them in these pages. The rule that the correspondent has chosen has however appealed to me.

We do very often meekly submit to many conventional ceremonies although we may have no faith in them, and although they may have no meaning for us. Submission to convention in trivial matters in which there is no danger of deceiving others or oneself is often desirable and even necessary. But submission in matters of religion, especially where there is a positive repugnance from within and a danger of deceiving our neighbours and ourselves, cannot but be debasing. There are today many religious ceremonies, which, whatever meaning and importance they might have had in ages gone by, have neither importance nor meaning for the rising generation. There can be no doubt that it is necessary for this generation to strike out an original path by giving a new form and even meaning to many old ceremonies. The idea of keeping green and of respecting the memory of one’s parents is not to be given up. But it is hardly necessary on that account to retain the old conventions and forms, which have lost their reality and therefore ceased to have any influence on us. I therefore commend the example of the correspondent to those who are anxious to do only that which is right, and free them from self-deception.

 

Reference:

Young India, 1-9-1927