RE: crossing the ocean

[Guest guest]

Hari Om!

 

I agree with Sriram Ramanuja Acharya' s answer in full. The problem

with Sanatana Dharma sampradayas today is that there are a lot of

shibboleths taught and practiced based on 'deshachara' and 'kalachara' -

customs based on place and time which have no real basis in the 'dharma

sastras'. Further most of our purohitas are not really scholars and have

studied these things by rote and follow practices based on tradition. Thus

several wrong customs have crept in.

 

In the island of Bali in Indonesia which even today is 90% Hindu they still

have trikala sandhya books published for my Veda which is Rg Veda and they

practice this as well. They also have stories and records of travel to

Bharatavarsha hundreds of yeras ago when there were certainly no planes and

travel had to be by ships only.

 

Again there are temples all over Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia and

Malaysia where the wroship must have been conducted by Brahmins only (it

says so in their texts). In Thailand, the coronation rituals for the King

specifically include Vedic chanting, even though the king is Buddhist

(nastika bhattacharya).

 

Hence, in such matters, one should not go by rigid inflexible tradition

quoted by semi-literate purohitas and everybody's grandmother's or

grandfather's sayings. One should go to the great peethadhipatis and ask

them in private for a solution, c.f. the Taitirriya Upanisad alooksha

dharmakamayasihu, tatha te teshu varteran ityadi. The dharma sastras have

exceptions and contingency provisions for every general rule. These are

often known and/or studed only by the great Acharyas and Panditas. They

will give you an answer. My revered father used to be in the Indian Foreign

Service (IFS) and we faced some such issues to which we got satisfactory

resolution.

 

Namo Narayanaya!

Nagendra Rao