Hinduism

Vel Festival - symbol of peace

Chelvatamby MANICCAVASAGAR

The "Vel" festival was started in Colombo by the Nattukottai Chettiars, the rich money lenders, jewellers and traders 150 years ago as an alternative for the Kataragama festival.

The chettiars are considered to be the original bankers of Sri Lanka. They had lent money to local businessmen who had no easy access to Commercial Banks run by the Britishers. The festival thus came to symbolise prosperity.

Besides, the "Vel" Festival emphasises the underlying oneness of society.

It reflects the home genuinely of thought and traditions that bind those live an our soil whether they live in Jaffna or in Matara.

Indeed, "Vel" festival is a great unifying force that brings people together, shedding racial, communal, religious political ideological differences.

This year the Vel Cart which is carved out of pure silver and laden with gold deities, studded with diamonds, rubies will more out with poojas at Sri Katheravelantha Temple, First Cross Street, Colombo to Bambalapitiya Manicca Vinayagar Temple.

The procession will symbolise and confirm a new beginning the beginning of reconciliation between two communities looking for peace and harmonious relationship, the beginning of a new phase in prosperity, the beginning of this end of bitterness, hatred, violence, dehumanising emasculating fear and tension.

Of the many gods in the Hindu Pantheon, no deity is revered more than Lord Skanda. He is the embodiment of the everlasting fragrance of life, the quality of goodness, the symphony of beauty, truth and love.

From the effulgent eye of Lord Shiva was begotten the eternal child of light, the incarnate wisdom of the ages. Lord Skanda manifests Himself in diverse forms as the Divine Guru, God of Sacrifice and the Leader of the powers of righteousness. Furthermore, Lord Skanda is the God of Peace, as well. He is the fighter of the evil forces. As a warrior, he is represented with a "Vel" in his hand.

According to the Deman Surapadman (Siva) when splint asunder by the Vel of Lord Skanda in the battle field Surapadman assumed the forms of a peacock and came to attack Lord Skanda. He subdued them and made the peacock as his vehicle and the fighter cock as an emblem on his banner.

"Vel" which is in the hands of Lord Skanda represents knowledge or learning. If devotes that a man's knowledge should be very sharp like that of the pointed edge of the Vel.

It should not only be sharp, but it should be broadened and deepened like that of Vel.

This means that however a man may be educated or intelligent enough, if he fails to maintain humility, tranquillity, equanimity and serenity of the mind, his learning will be of no use to himself and the society and the progress and success of the individual will be stultified.

The "Vel" cart symbolises this human body and the statue of Lord Skanda is the soul.

In front of the Vel Cart are the wooden horses depicted as galloping and the reins are attached to their months and held in the hands of the image of Lord Skanda. These horses represent human passions and the reins symbolise the necessity of restraining and guiding these passions by the soul.

The journey of the Vel cart through the streets symbolises the progress of life. This shows that throughout his life a man must control and guide his passions of his soul. These passions are the motive powers, the divining force of life, but unguided they will wreck a man's life. This is the symbolic meaning of the Vel festival.

Shaivaism in Hinduism Part-1

S.Shivapadasundaram

Shaivaism is the religion of those who accept the authority of the Vedas and the Shivagamas and regard them as having been revealed by God.

The Vedas are intended for all, but the Shivagamas are meant only for the spiritually minded. All the four Vedas are still in existence. But most of the Shivagamas have disappeared. They were in existence in the time of Arulnandi Shivam, who had studied all of them and was hence called Sakalagama Panditer. Fortunately for us, he has included in his magnum opus, the Shivagnana Siddhiar, the essence of the most of the Agamas. The commentators of this book mention seventeen Shivagamas, which contain teachings identical with the more important teachings in Siddhiar.

Belief

This shows that those Agamas existed in the times of these commentators. Besides Siddhiar, we have the Shivagnana Bodham, which is a portion of the Rourava Shivagama and is believed to be its essence. This was rendered in to Tamil with a short commentary by Meikandar. These two Tamil books give us the philosophical portion (the Gnana Padam) of the Agamas. There are twelve other works in Tamil which supplement these and form with them what are called the fourteen Siddhanta Shastras. Of these, Irupa Irupathu was written by Arulnandi Shivam himself seven or eight others were written by his disciple's disciple, Umapathi Shivam.

Thirumantram of Tirumular, believed to have been written more than two thousand years ago, also contains Shaiva philosophy. These fifteen works seem to be able to take the place of the philosophical portion of the Shivagamas.

Shaiva philosophy posits a God and only one God. Besides positing God, it also gives reasons in support of it.

The Universe as a whole undergoes change. For every change there must be a cause. Therefore, there must be a cause for the change in the Universe. This cause must be something different from the Universe. That which causes this is called God.

But it may be argued that it is the nature of the Universe to undergo change and that an outside cause is not necessary. But change cannot be the nature of a thing; for, first of all, we do not find anything which is changed by itself. Everything remains as it is unless it is subjected to an outside agency. Water remains water and does not become ice unless it is cooled by something else. Secondly, if it is the nature of a thing to change, we must find everything changing continually, and at random, and without reference to anything else. We should not even be surprised if a man suddenly changes into a pillar. Thirdly, if changing should be the nature of a thing, it loses its identity and is no longer that thing but a different one.

Universe

So change cannot be said to be the quality of a thing. For example, if one of the right angles of a square changes into an acute angle it is no longer a square but a rhombus, and we never find a square becoming a rhombus by itself.

Therefore, change cannot be the nature of a thing; the change in the Universe as a whole cannot be due to its nature.

It must be caused by something which is not the Universe, and that which causes this is God.

Changes take place not only in the inorganic Universe.

At one time, this earth had been part of the sun. It must have been a burning mass at the time of separation. Life was impossible in that burning mass. But we see life now, and this is a change; not merely life, but life of such marvellous development as man; not merely man, but men of such wonderful intelligence as Einstein and Ramanujam.

It is a tremendous change from lifelessness to the intelligence of Einstein, and the change must have been caused by something which is all knowing and which Shaivaism calls God.

A reason for the belief in the existence of God comes from the need for protecting ourselves and our belongings. Everyone wants to be safe, and everyone wants his belongings also to be safe.

The right

Nobody wishes to be murdered or robbed. If he and his properties are to be safe, people must know what is right and be bound to do the right.

The science of ethics has miserably failed in its attempt to discover basis for discriminating right from wrong. Every ethical theory put forward by ethics has been found to be slippery.

Tell an atheist that just as he has the right to claim the safety of his person and property others also have the right to claim the safety of their persons and properties and that he ought to respect their claim, he can say "There is no such thing as right. I have no such thing as right. I have no claim for my personal safety. What counts is might. If I do not have the might to protect my property, I must lose it. If I have the might to take another man's property, I take it. By might I mean the might of myself and of those who help me, including the State, if it happens to be on my side. I will stab or murder, steal or rob, break a house or set fire to it, if these were my interests, provided my safety is ensured. Even highly civilised countries like England and America, France and Germany, regard might as the supreme arbiter and have, on this basis, fought the two great World Wars of the present century. No sensible man will accept your dictum 'Do unto others what you wish that they should do unto you'. This is the dictum of weaklings and imbeciles.

Might

According to your line of reasoning, a lamb has as much right to live as yourself. But you slaughter it and eat it because you have the might to do so. An atheist is not bound to have any regard for morals.

The existence of God and of His revelation must be postulated for the acceptance of moral laws. Siddhiar says "The true dharma is Shiva's Law".

It may be observed in this connection that it is only Shaivaism which prohibits all kinds of wrongs, including killing, meat-eating and drinking.

But there are those who very comfortably say "I have no need for God. I have a conscience, which tells me what is right and what is wrong. I will endeavour to obey it." But, conscience is a myth. What a man calls conscience is nothing other than the decision of his intellect, based on his ideals, knowledged etc. There have been persons who at one time hated bribery, but later became ardent votaries of it. So putting in terms of conscience, at one time their conscience disapproved bribery, and at another time approved it. Orthodox meat - eaters have become orthodox vegetarians i.e. at one time their conscience approved meat eating and at another time condemned it.

Again we see the conscience of one man approving murder for political purposes and the conscience of another man abhorring it.

We thus see that conscience differs in the same man from time to time and in different persons at the same time. Conscience is therefore altogether undependable. Morality can depend only on religion, and the existence of God has to be admitted for the maintenance of moral life.

Having thus demonstrated the need for the belief in the existence of God, our philosophy says that there can be only one God. We first arrived at the existence of God in our attempt to explain the change the Universe undergoes.

God is thus the wielder of the Universe. There cannot be two beings each independently controlling the Universe. So the Veda says, "There is only one God; but sages call Him by different names."The next teaching of Shaivaism is that we are all souls and that are realities. A reality cannot come out of nothing, and a reality which is not composite is eternal. The soul is not composite and is therefore eternal.

But there are those who deny the existence of the soul and regard the body as the individual. They hold that thinking is done by the nervous systems in the brain. But nerves are mere chemical products and are therefore nonintelligent. If a man frequently repeats "7 times 12 is 84" this truth will come to him whenever he wishes to know what 7 times 12 is. But intricate mathematical problems cannot be solved by such habit formations. There must, therefore, be something other than the body to do work of this kind. Shaiva philosophy says that which does this is the soul.But another class of philosophers say that the solution of problems can be done by the mind and that the existence of the soul does not follow from this. In answer to this.

Shaiva philosophy says that the mind is only a tool and not the agent. We control our minds in several ways. When the mind is prone to be idle, we sometimes press it to do the work in hand.

Late Sri La Sri S. Shivapadasundaram B.A. was born in a family of Tamil, Sanskrit and Shaiva scholars at Puloly, Vadamarachi, Jaffna District.

Shivapadasundaram had a razor sharp intellect and penchant for logical thinking; these qualities are reflected in all his writings. He was a versatile writer and has written several books in Tamil and English on wide ranging subjects - Shaiva Religion, Education Psychology and Logic. His magnum opus in Tamil was his brilliant commentary on Thiruvarudpayan, one of the fourteen Saiva Sidhanta Epistemological books and in English was his Saiva school of Hinduism, it has been recognised as an outstanding standard book, it is prescribed as a text book at the Benares University at the sacred city of Benares (Kasi). India for the M.A. degree examination on Saiva Siddhantam. Most of his other books are text books locally.

In all his writings Sri La Sri Shivapadarundaram B.A. meticulously followed the footsteps of Sri La Sri Arumuga Navalar. To be continued

Four Facts of Hinduism

These four facts-karma, reincarnation, all-pervasive divinity and dharma-are the essence of the Vedas and Agamas and the fabric of every Hindu's life. Speak of them to all who will listen. They are the heritage of all souls.

Karma

According as one acts, so does he become. One becomes virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action.

Yajur Veda, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.5 Karma literally means "deed" or "act" and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction which governs all life.

Karma is a natural law of the mind, just as gravity is a law of matter.

Karma is not fate, for man acts with free will, creating his own destiny.

The Vedas tell us, if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil.

Karma refers to the totality of our actions and their concomitant reactions in this and previous lives, all of which determines our future. It is the interplay between our experience and how we respond to it that makes karma devastating or helpfully invigorating. The conquest of karma lies in intelligent action and dispassionate reaction.

Not all karmas rebound immediately. Some accumulate and return unexpectedly in this or other births.

Reincarnation

After death, the soul goes to the next world, bearing in mind the subtle

impressions of its deeds, and after reaping their harvest returns again to this world of action. Thus, he who has desires continues subject to rebirth. To be continued