SUPERSTITION IN THE 21ST CENTURY INDIA

Ø In a shocking incident, a daily wage labourer named Afizuddin Ali married his teenage daughter and made her pregnant, citing "divine sanction" at Kashiajhora village in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal recently.

Ø A rickshaw puller in Chennai committed suicide so that his eyes could be used to restore vision to his blind brother. Tragically it was found out after his death that his eyes could anyway not have been used on account of medical reasons.

Ø A woman psychiatrist killed her elder son in order to use his blood for transfusion into the body of her younger son so that the latter could become as intelligent as his [ now dead] brother. The father who looked on at the horrendous and bizarre operation was a doctor himself. All this was done at the behest of a swamiji.

One can submit any number of such macabre but true stories in support of the contention that we are a superstitious nation. I have done some research into such bizarre stories in the media and found that this cuts cross boundaries of religion, caste economic status, and even nationalities. Even in the US some superstitions abound thereby suggesting that educational and material progress alone may not eliminate this problem.

Scientists are also prone to having their untenable beliefs despite their eminence in their field of specialization.

The dividing line between superstition and mistaken beliefs based on racism etc is not clear. Thus a Harvard dean announced that he believed women were genetically inferior to men in the study of mathematics. Even as this raised a storm another eminent American scientist said that Africans were genetically inferior and as such Africa could never progress.

I happened to talk to an American scientist who derided Indian scientists for their superstitions. I asked him for an example of this superstitious behavior. He replied that his Indian scientist friends went to a temple and offered worship before starting an experiment. I asked why he considered this to be a superstition. He said that praying to false Gods was a superstition. I then asked him what his definitions of ‘ superstition’ and ‘true God’ were .‘Anyone other than Jesus is a false God’ he said.

It struck me that even a scientist can err in such matters as religion. Clearly one man’s belief is another man’s superstition.

This scientist went on to define superstition as a belief that can be negated by common sense or scientific knowledge based on evidence. He then reminded me that the ‘milk drinking Ganesha’ that springs up occasionally even in a so called ‘educated city’ like Mumbai was a superstition. I had to agree on that point. But I cornered him by asking if there was any ‘ scientific’ evidence of the biblical miracles. To his credit he switched the topic. I could reach the same conclusion I have cited earlier—one man’s belief…’..

Does education help remove superstitions? Not necessarily as we have seen in the case of the doctor couple and many such cases. . Does economic development help? Not necessarily as the case of the same doctor couple and millions of other such stories indicate. In the US the number 13 is considered unlucky. The highest paid astrologer in the US and maybe the world is not an Indian but a woman called Marjory Orr.

Religion may in fact fuel irrational beliefs. In this respect no religion is exempt. Some of the most basic beliefs of most faiths can be classified as superstitions if the test of common sense and evidence is applied. I am sure that if I were to list them here I would be inciting a riot!. By the way many riots –religious or not --begin with the irrational divide between them and us.

Extremist ideology of the left or right have something in common—the tendency to divide people into two camps, the effort to demonise the other, the effort to create hatred of the other and the appeal to irrational emotions to fuel violence. At this point of time people suspend logic, common sense and common human considerations to kill. The Gujerat riots whose true dimensions are unfolding these days is just one example. Stalin and Mao are two of the moist heinous men apart from Hitler who will go down in history for their getting irrational behavior from ordinary people to kill millions of innocent people. Perhaps this proves that atheists are also superstitious. Ideology not religion is the basis for their brand of superstitions.

How then can we eliminate superstition? I am afraid there is no answer to this question.

When I look back at human behavior over the entire course of evolution I am afraid I cannot resist coming to the conclusion which fortunately none less than Einstein endorses---

OVER THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF EVOLUTION, EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED EXCEPT THE WAY WE THINK.

There seems to be something in the human condition, in the thought process that makes us surrender even humanitarian considerations and turn to even close neighbours to harm or kill them and to believe in the unbelievable. The primordial emotions of man have remained the same over millennia—fear, greed, hatred, envy, anger, desire. Every religion asks us to conquer these but to no avail.

No Prophet, saint or holy man or woman has made much of a difference to humanity at large in our conquest of these negative emotions . Maybe a few people have been converted and have been able to conquer the worst forms of inhuman behaviour —it is this conversion that ought to be the goal of all men of all religions rather than the superficial transformation from believing one ‘God ‘ to switching to believing in another ‘ God’

The Rationalists Association has done some work to eradicate superstitions .Unfortunately in India at least they have been selective in their choice of people to ‘ expose’ with the result that they are clubbed with

‘ pseudosecularists’. Maybe they too have some irrational beliefs .

I can only conclude that superstitions will be with us even in the distant future.

All that we can strive for is to guide our family members to abjure superstitions that harm others physically or emotionally. Harmless superstitions—like wearing a shirt of a particular color whenever we attend an interview-- may be ignored.

A friend of mine says only God can deliver us from superstitions.

This leads us to a critical question--Is belief in God itself another superstition?

BELIEFS ABOUT NUMBERS

There are several theories about numbers. Number 'one' is sometimes avoided by folks. They substitute it by the word 'first'. When measuring paddy, the villagers say by 'profit' for the first measure in many places. The name of the local deity is mentioned to denote the commencement of measuring first measure. It is thought that, if the first attempt in any venture fails, success is possible only after third attempt.

There is a feeling that '3' is not good number and people avoid going in groups of three. Since any association with that number is supposed to defeat the purpose of the journey. Some persons say 'six plus one' to indicate seven. Number 8 has an unlucky sound and so in measuring paddy, the villager says 'eight measures' and not simply eight.

Generally, people prefer odd numbers. In making donations, a round sum is first thought of and a small figure added to make it odd e.g. Rs.1001,5005

Several persons wait, until they can get the number of their liking in the securing telephone connections or a motor-car registration .

BELIEFS ABOUT TRAVEL

The itching of the sole of the foot indicates a forth coming journey. It is considered a good omen if a Garuda is seen hovering in the sky when one goes about on an important assignment. The ordinary folk are keen on hearing good and cheerful words as promise of success. On a person leaving home on a significant mission, it is auspicious if an unknown voice is heard to say 'my cow gave abundant milk this morning'. This is called Virichi.

At the commencement of a trip is a good augury to see flowers, a married woman or a pot full of water. The sight of a Garuda, a dog or a squirrel crossing from the traveller's sight to his left indicates success. A cow, a parrot, a peacock, a fowl, a deer, a tiger, or buffalo, augur will for the traveller, if they cross from his left to his right.

Umbrella, flag, Chamaram or giant sized whisks form the temple, sugar-cane, meat, milk,curd, honey, bull, cow, elephant, prostitute, horse, and fruits are welcome if they come towards the traveller. It is also lucky to hear the sound of a bell or cannon, the braying of an ass, the cry of Garuda or the recitation of the scriptures at the commencement of the journey .

It is the tradition to return home drink a cup of water, rest for a while and resume the trip, if

1. one is crossed by a snake, a cat, a monk, a lonely Brahmin, a barber, a widow or an oil-monger

2. an unpleasant sound is heard

3. there is a slip of the leg or accidental fall

4. the head is hit by the top of the door-frame or by some other obstruction

5. some unknown voice says "don't go"

6. there is unusual or abnormal rain or drizzle .

One should not carry oil and dirty linen in one's baggage. There are several other restrictions on travel. It is not customary for husbands to start on important errands, when the wife is having her menstruation period. Like wise, there are the soolam rules prohibiting travel in particular directions on each-week day. One should not go north ward on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, southward on Thursdays, eastward on Monday and Saturdays and westward on Sundays and Fridays. Every rule has an exception and in an emergency one can leave in the late afternoon, after offering curd to the deity. Owing to the wide observance of this soolam rule, trains from Madras bound for the south are not crowded on Thursdays .

Another prohibited period for travel is Rahu Kalam or in auspicious part of the day. It duration is an hour and a half. It is unwritten rule not to commence any venture during this period. People carry with them the Rahu Kalam time table for ready reference. There are code sentences in English and Tamil to denote these timings like "Mother saw the father wearing the turban on Sunday". Mother stands for Monday, saw for Saturday, father for Friday and so on. The auspicious period occurs in this order starting at 7.30 on Monday and ending at 6.00 hours on Sunday evening.

Some hill-tribes of Madurai under take journeys before sunrise on Mondays, after mid-day on Tuesdays, after dusk on Wednesdays, after breakfast on Thursdays, and journeys after sunrise on Fridays and Saturdays are avoided.

BELIEFS ABOUT PREGNANT WOMEN

It is believed that a pregnant woman should not be photographed. A pregnant woman's requests for edibles and consumer articles generally acceded to since it is though that refusal may lead to ear-diseases for the child in the womb.

Therai ( toad) falling on a pregnant woman may be the cause of some diseases to the off-spring. Between conception and delivery, a woman should not do any tailoring work. A woman bitten by a scorpion during pregnancy immunises the future child to scorpion-bites. A nest being built inside a house by a bird or wasp assures safe delivery.

BELIEFS ABOUT CHILDREN

A mirror should not be shown to babies as it is supposed to make them dumb. A person should not clean his teeth while baby sitting.

When the first tooth of a child falls out the fallen tooth is carefully placed in a lump of cow -dung, symbol of fertility, and thrown over roof in the belief that such action will hasten the re-growth of the child 's teeth.
On suspicion that a person's jealous eye is the cause of child's illness or some misery in the family, at his next visit some one in the family follows him, collects a handful of earth on which that person had set foot and circles it clockwise around the child's head thrice, to ward off evil and then throws it in to the oven. If a child has breathing difficulty immediately after birth its forehead is scorched with a hot needle.

When the fist two children die, the death of the third child is averted by disfiguring its face, by piercing the left nostril and putting a gold wire ring through it. These mutilations are effected to make the child ugly and thus prevent him/her being the cynosure of this child by giving the child a humble name like Kuppusamy (Lord of refuse), Kuppammal (lady of refuse ), Pakri( Fakir) or Pichai (beggar).

Superstitions and Witchcraft: The evils holding India back

About 60 years ago, the great freedom fighters of India had fought a ferocious battle to the extent of sacrificing their lives to free India from the British rule. When Jawaharlal Nehru delivered his speech on the Red Fort at the stroke of midnight on 15th August, 1947 he along with others had dreamt of building a country that would see its citizens independent and educated. However, the situation after all these years has remained almost unchanged. Though the literacy rate has only risen post-independence the story of the villages is unmentionable. The villages, instead of progressing being independent have only lagged behind caught in the shackles of superstitions and witchcraft.

BELIEFS REGARDING BIRTH OF CHILDREN

These are many and varied. A child should not be born at mid day or at mid night. A child should not be born with Chitrai as the birth star, because, Chitra guptan, the faithful servant of Yama was born in this star.

Birth in swati star is said to be bad for any child. A boy is extremely lucky to be born in Moola but woe unto a girl born under this star. A person is considered fortunate if he has a piece of agricultural land near his village and a child born in Uttradam star. He who is born in Bharani will rule the earth. A grand father may, prefer to death to hearing that his grand son's star is Kettai. A father will become a beggar if a boy is born in the Chitrai star. A birth in Rohini is inauspicious for the child's uncle. A girl born in avittam will find gold even in a pot of bran. Pooradam is an undesirable star for girls.

Daughter should be born in odd number in the sequence of birth i.e. first, third, fifth children should be girls. A fourth-born girl is said to ruin the house, but a fifth-born girl will bring gold to the house. A fifth born boy will squander away all the wealth. A six-born girl brings either prosperity or poverty. A seventh-born girl will utter poverty to the family. She cannot be successful even as a beggar. An eighth-born girl destroys everything. She has a glimpse of Ettavathu penn ettipatha idam kuttichuvaru. A tenth-born girl makes wealth fly away like cotton. In view of these beliefs, contracting parties to a marriage make enquires about the number of the birth of the groom or bride.

When twins are born, if both of them are boys, the family is said to have turned a leaf for the better and there is very great rejoicing. It is not inauspicious if both the children are girls. A boy and a girl born together forebode evil to the family.

Beliefs and Superstitions

No matter which part of the world you tour, you will find the natives nurturing certain beliefs and superstitions and India is no exception in this case. Though the Indian society is fast progressing, there are many people who are still superstitious and have a strong faith in the local beliefs. While some of them are quite hilarious, few others are really interesting, as many aspects of life are linked to them. Few beliefs even find their way into the Indian religious texts and scriptures.

The standard viewpoint is that most of the Indian beliefs and values have sprung with an objective to protect from evil spirits, but some were based on scientific reasoning. With the passage of time, the reasoning part behind the origin of these cultural beliefs and superstitions got eroded. That is exactly why most of these beliefs appear unsubstantiated and false. However, in reality, there are many such beliefs in the Indians culture which are absolutely absurd and have no logic behind them.

Superstitions are deemed as pertinent in India because these, generally, hint at future occurrences and can be either good or bad. Thus, anything from the call of a bird to the falling of utensils is considered an omen in India. Many of the traditional superstitions in India are connected with animals, birds and reptiles. For instance, seeing an elephant when one is leaving for a journey is considered lucky. This is because an elephant represents Lord Ganesha, the Indian God who is the harbinger of good luck and removes obstacles.

Similarly, other auspicious signs could be cawing of a black crow in one's house, as it forecasts the arrival of guests. Seeing a peacock on a journey is also considered lucky, but hearing its shrill sound is bad. Indians feel happy if a sparrow builds a nest in a new house because it signals good fortune. A very old belief is that if you kill a cat, you have to offer one in gold to a priest. This belief or superstition was concocted by the priests to protect the cats, which are useful in killing the rats in people's houses.

Leaving one's home after wedding or for some other important task is a significant occasion. Thus, Indians often consult astrological charts to fix an auspicious time for this. Again, it is considered lucky to see cereals, paddy, cotton, hay or a newly wed before embarking on a journey. In India, you may also come across or hear about people who help in interpreting other's dreams. Even the daily life of Indians is governed by beliefs and superstitions. For example, Monday is not an auspicious day for shaving and Thursday is a bad day for washing one's hair.

Superstition and religion

In keeping with the Latin etymology of the word, religious believers have often seen other religions as superstition. Likewise, atheists and agnostics may regard religious belief as superstition.

Religious practices are most likely to be labeled "superstitious" by outsiders when they include belief in extraordinary events (miracles), an afterlife, supernatural interventions, apparitions or the efficacy of prayer, charms, incantations, the meaningfulness of omens, and prognostications.

Greek and Roman pagans, who modeled their relations with the gods on political and social terms, scorned the man who constantly trembled with fear at the thought of the gods, as a slave feared a cruel and capricious master. "Such fear of the gods (deisidaimonia) was what the Romans meant by 'superstition' (Veyne 1987, p 211). For Christians just such fears might be worn proudly as a name: Desdemona.

The Roman Catholic Church considers superstition to be sinful in the sense that it denotes a lack of trust in the divine providence of God and, as such, is a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states superstition "in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion" (para. #2110).

The Catechism clearly dispels commonly held preconceptions or misunderstandings about Catholic doctrine relating to superstitious practices:

Superstition is a deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand is to fall into superstition.

Some superstitions originated as religious practices that continued to be observed by people who no longer adhere to the religion that gave birth to the practice. Often the practices lost their original meaning in this process. In other cases, the practices are adapted to the current religion of the practicer. As an example, during the Christianizing of Europe, pagan symbols to ward off evil were replaced with the Christian cross, which itself is a much older symbol than the Christian religion.

Superstition

Superstition (Latin superstitio, literally "standing over"; derived perhaps from standing in awe; used in Latin as a unreasonable or excessive belief in fear or magic, especially foreign or fantastical ideas, and thus came to mean a "cult" in the Roman empire) is a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge. The word is often used pejoratively to refer to supposedly irrational beliefs of others, and its precise meaning is therefore subjective. It is commonly applied to beliefs and practices surrounding luck, prophecy and spiritual beings.

To medieval scholars the word was applied to and beliefs outside of or in opposition to Christianity; today it is applied to conceptions without foundation in, or in contravention of, scientific and logical knowledge. The earliest English uses of the word in the modern era refer critically to Catholic practices such as censing, rosaries, and other practices that Protestants believed went beyond - or were set up above - beliefs that seemed unfounded or primitive in the light of modern knowledge.

Many extant superstitions are said to have originated during the plagues that swept through Europe. According to legend, during the time of a plague, Saint Gregory I the Great ordered that people say "God bless you" when somebody sneezed, to prevent the spread of the disease.