Children

[Guest guest]

As mentioned earlier we run Hinduism classes for children. Recently about 95

candidates sat for various examinations for London University Board. Some of

the answers we had seen in earlier tests are worth sharing with you.

 

We had introduced Sanskrit words like 'prati' means going towards (God)

then from 'prati' we derived two words: -

'pratima' (image of God)

and 'pratik' (symbol of God)

Then in the test we asked 'What is pratima?'

Answer from a 10 year old --- "She lives next door".

 

In another place we had asked 'What is the importance of Ganga?' (Ganges the

sacred river). A girl of 9 answered "Because she is my granny" (Ganga being

common name for elderly ladies)

 

We had asked:-

What is meaning of 'Buddha?' (answer we were expecting 'the enlightened

one')

We got answer 'Old man' (from literal translation in Indian language).

Another guy went further and said 'Buddha' is 'Fat old man' (recounting his

view of Chinese Buddha figure). All incarnations have to suffer such

irreverence - what to do?

 

Once we introduced the idea of austerities / self discipline and introduced

the Sanskrit word to describe this as 'tap'.

The test paper asked: "What is tap?".

Some guys had missed the class -- They looked at the question in disbelief

and then decided to reply.

One said, "Water comes out of it"

Another was more inventive so wrote "It is a type of dance"

 

Well in the tests we could not help but give marks for such answers but

London University may not be so kind. Let us see what results we get.

 

In any case we are having a lot of fun in the name of spirituality.

 

jay