shiva lingum symbolic of what?

[Guest guest]

my understanding is that the shiva lingum is a phallic symbol

and used in certain fertility rites in the temple

 

is this true?

 

also can someone explain why the practice of live wife burning on dead husbands pyre was/is so allowed?

 

where's the spiritual message here?

[Guest guest]

 

my understanding is that the shiva lingum is a phallic symbol

and used in certain fertility rites in the temple

 

is this true?

 

Perhaps in some cases, although this is certainly not common practice. The symbol is revered as Lord Shiva and worshipped similar to the worship of any idol. No difference.

 

 

also can someone explain why the practice of live wife burning on dead husbands pyre was/is so allowed?

 

where's the spiritual message here?

 

Why do you think there is a spiritual message associated with this practice?

 

The origin of this practice is not clear. It certainly does not have any religious origin. It may have originated in some warrior clans where the wives were in danger of death and abuse and voluntarily decided to kill themselves. The Mughal kings starting from Humayun to Aurangzeb tried their hand at banning this system, without much success. Akbar came with up with a clever concept of delaying the decision of immolation as once the initial surge of emotions caused by the husband’s death pass, the wife may be willing to consider living on.

 

Eventually under the British government, William Bentnick banned this rule firmly resisting opposition from Hindus and since then it is no longer in existence.

[Gaea 0]

technically the wife-buring thing in India is illegal, but there are isolated incidents that I hae heard about. There is definately a religious origin - Madri, wife of Pandu, burned herself at the pyre. What does it mean? I don't know - perhaps it is testimony of the Lakshmi-Visnu relationship that used to exist between husband and wife in previous yugas.

[Guest guest]

sounds logical that in war this might have been better alternative than to live as the wife/slave/concubine of the enemy who slayed husband

 

but the practice was more widespread than that and all must agree that it is distasteful and unacceptable

 

so although its origin is unknown hinduism cannot allow it on grounds of 'life is precious' spiritual message

 

also the lingam cannot be an alternative idol to shiva -shiva statues are completely different to the lingam -

 

should not we go back to roots and become true hindus and clean up all useless/non spirtual pactices such as not respecting/worshipping idols

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna!

 

On the sati system...i would like to speculate

 

The wife jumps into the fire when the husband dies becasue the wife does not want to live without the husband. So, is this mateiral love to the highest degree that a wife loves her husband so much that she jumps into the fire as she cannot imagine a life without her husband....may be...or may be there ia a spiritual significance?

 

This is how i have known this ritual....the husband who is a Vaishnava, a devout servant of Lord Krishna spends his entire life in Krishna Bhajana, he dies and the wife who is also a Vaishnava sees her husband as Guru akin to the status of God finds her material position desolate on the loss of her Guru. Without Guru (the husband), the women cannot find further spiritual progress and hence decided to relinquish her mortal body and obtain a higher body.

 

Now, the considerations to note here are, the husband should be a pure devotee of the Lord and the wife is completely chaste by completely surrendering her mind and action to her husband/Guru who is showing her the light to spiritual enlightment. Once that light is diminished, the wife sees no reason to live as there can be no spiritual growth without husband and hence leaves her body when the husband is burning with the hope that she reunites in service to her husband to advance further in her spiritual journey towards Krishna.

 

Later, as time passed, hardly one can find Vaishnava husbands and chaste wives and the sati just became a mere ritual which deemed abolition. But, the original intent and spirit of the ceremony of Sati had a spiritual significance which we, modern day man, should see the wife and husband as spiritual entities and not on the bodily platform and that one lived for the other not to satisfy their gross and mental senses (as most of the husbands and wives do today) but to seek the Supreme Goal of life- Lord Krishna!

 

Haribol!

 

anand

[Guest guest]

It is means that one aspect of God is formless, by that I mean without a MATERIAL form. And that everything begins from God and withdraws into Him at the end. God also has a form but not a material form, comprised of saccidananda vigraha.

 

Also many cultures had a similar symbol for Supreme Progenitor. Google the topic you will see how many different cultures had this idea.

[gHari 0]

The brazen British gave the word "idol" to India to ridicule its people and religion. Stop the stupidity now. Use the word "Deity" and do so with utmost respect. The British were never your superiors, only your conquerors, no different than the barbarian hordes of Mongolia, Hitler, and every other blood-thirsty thief that has disgraced this planet.

[sree_79 0]

Hallo ,

 

Where does suddenly Krishna Devoteeism or Vaishnava concept come with regarding to Sati here??. Why do you need to link these two different things where the former is a HinduFaith and the other is a Ritual.

 

Regarding the After War Slavery might be one of the point, but what i believe is that :

 

When one gets married according to Hindu Faith, we perform rituals in Front of Agni (Fire God - significance of total truth and commitment) and finally do Pra-dakshanas. Well also during this we say that the BrideGroom and Bride have to be together in all aspects : Artha Kama Moksha. And so Sati would ofcourse NOT mean only MATERIAL BONDAGE.

 

And also during the previous Yuga, people were as pure that they could pass through Fire and not get burnt 1% also. The Best Example is Sita in Ramayana, After coming back from Lanka were she had to proove her Pureness by going into Fire!. People of previous Yugas are definitely better in spiritual ways / devotion wise than the current Kali Yuga. So may be the Rituals have changed and shall be changing as time passes on.

 

OM Shanti Shanti Shanti

 

Sreenivas.

[zorba 0]

i think it symbolise that bramha has both sex or in other words bramh has no sex.

 

If it would have been sharmads way then buddha would have said that brahm or rather sunya do not have any sex but as hindu's(too vague as term to be used but still works) are more life affarmative they built this statue to symbolise the idea of bramha i.e,the whole.

[Guest guest]

I don't know how much William Bentnick did but it was Raja Rammohan Roy who worked tirelessly to have this system abolished ... and succeeded in doing so.

 

Can you provide some details about William Bentnick. This is the first I've heard of his name in regards to this follish practice.

 

 

Eventually under the British government, William Bentnick banned this rule firmly resisting opposition from Hindus and since then it is no longer in existence.

[Guest guest]

For info on the Shiva lingam, its history and significance has some information on www dot indiantemples dot com

 

About the sati, do some research on it. From what I understand, sometimes a cultural practice is passed off as an essential spiritual practice.

 

For example if you do some preliminary research you will find that every continent has had slavery: Native Americans, Greeks, Romans, China, India, Egypt, and so on. And it has happened since the Stone Age. Now why was that? Because after a war the people left over had to become slaves of the winners as a type of restitution.

 

So if your spouse that you really cared about was killed in a battle then maybe preferable to becoming a slave i.e. a human-trafficked prostitute to your enemy then you kill yourself as fast as possible so you don't end up like that. We know that the Vikings had this death by immoliation and they are European people. They filled the war canoe of the deceased with all of his possessions to take with him to Valhalla or their heavenly afterlife and then burned it and the lady of the guy was in there too. So maybe you should blame it on the peace-loving Scandinavian people then how it got started.

 

Also the Hindus and Buddhists believed that to burn the material body then the astral body and the soul can go to its next destination and not be bound to this mortal plane. So was it was sati always voluntary or not that is the next question. In many cultures like Egypt, China we see the kings or princes buried their whole staff and all of their wives, mistresses, and concubines with them so they could all journey to the afterlife together. So sati is a similar concept just in one culture they are burying them with the main person who died and in other cultures are cremating them.

 

Next moving to post-modern era, having said all of that I read that in the more recent times this custom was something that got out of hand due to greed by greedy greedy selfish men. They figured out that if they could get rid of the lady after a guy dies then guess who gets all of the guy's property?

The brothers.

 

This is where it becomes nothing spiritual at all, just alot of bad karma based on greed for wealth and property and the strong exploiting the weak. If they send the widow lady to some holy dhama to live as a widow, inauspicious, never to be seen again, you are bad luck, then they have very convenient excuse to grab the property and wealth that should rightfully belong to that lady. And so maybe she prefer to just end it all quickly as opposed to the bad things that can happen to a person when you are told that you are inauspicious and bad luck and bye-bye no money for you go spend the rest of your life wearing a rag while we live it up with your dead husband's estate.

 

So do some research and see the trend from the Stone Age to now, then get some idea how it might have made sense at one time and then later on an excuse to exploit people based on the strong exploiting the weak and greed.