CUSTOMARY CONSUMPTION OF THE FOURTEEN VARIETIES OF VEGETABLE ON THE DAY PRECEDING DEWALI : A NOTE

摘要

The present exploratory note makes a preliminary attempt in trying to understand the connectivity of some antique rituals of the Hindu crematory funerals. Funerals in Hindu designation is Antyesti which is formed from the two juxtaposed words antyd and isti, speaking literally of only the last rite on the human .body. The perfunctory practices with which the event seems to have just found its way in humankind has got later the shape differently in different races and localities conforming to the contexts of respective time and circumstantial realities. The Hindu word too is accustomed to different practices from the Vedic days, which ultimately rests on crematory funerals. The primitives did not want their mortal existence extinct in the span of just a single life, but desired it recurred one after another. This fleshly primitive yearning has got later refurbished in the deftly designed theory of rebirth. Likely with that end in view the funerals are generally so arranged that there might dawn a chance, which the people fancy, could get that fervent desire somebody someday satisfied. The term antyesti, precisely the latter part, isti, has a fine bearing on this design of humanity. The isti sacrifice, practically the ritual prototype thereof, stands for the recurrent natural events in the moon's cyclic termination and regeneration, which bears undercurrent upon the funeral rites envisaging the recurrent reincarnation of human soul. This, again, gets suggested in the context of the Hindu eschatology providing some trails to associate the moon with death.