The study and practice of hindu kalpa-s is quite *addictive* and (thankfully) useful - just as some other performance arts are. Even if you discount purported supernatural benefits, many hindu rituals (with their varied mantra, tantra, svara underpinnings) are incredibly well designed.
The US army flag-hoisting ceremony and the Japanese tea ceremony are examples of very moving rituals in non-hindu contexts which may resonate with your past experience, gentle reader.
Even child development experts state: “Creating your own special rituals now, and faithfully repeating them throughout your child’s life, will provide your child with a sense of security, stability, belonging, connectedness, and pride in his family.” [BC]
A personal note: I enjoy chanting (especially bits of the vEda-s I know), doing Asanas, various niyta and naimittika karmas. Repeating well crafted mantra-s, until a pinnacle of mood, memory and understanding is reached, is a favorite ‘meditation’. Thence I enjoy benefits such as courage, steadfastness in the dharma, joy etc.
आत्मसंस्कारः
Besides being inter-generational vehicles of culture, they form an effective path to self-cultivation (refinement of buddhi, manas, ahaMkAra) when performed correctly with proper sentiment (esp: bhakti) and understanding.
आर्ष-भारतीय-धर्म-दर्शने ऽवस्थानम्, तत्पोषणञ्च।
- आमनोः कालादस्मान् रक्षति धर्मः।
- हिन्दुसंस्काराणाम् हिन्दुषु विशिष्टः बलम्।
- यथा पादपः स्व-पूर्वज-परिचिते भूमौ दृढतरानि मूलानि प्रसारयति, तथैव नराः स्व व्यक्तित्व-पोषणाय धर्मादि-साधनाय च स्व-संस्कृत्याम् कुशलतराः। पर-संस्कृत्याम् हिताहित-भेदः असुलभः।
Cashing the check partially
Certain communities with a very rigorous intellectual culture maintained through centuries of praxis can “cash their cheque” to attain great heights in secular professions. Classic e.g. is of course the Jews of Eastern Europe, and possibly some brahmin castes in India. But now the question arises - once you cash your cheque, what next?
You can cash your cheque just once. Once you break with the tradition, cash your cheque and attain great wealth, that’s it. You marry out. Your communal identity dies. And the intellectual culture also dies. Your biological successors will regress to the mean in a few generations.
The trick is to partake in the benefits of modernity, but at the same time maintain the intellectual culture which granted you the enormous advantages in the first place. That requires you to cash your check in part, but not wholly. That takes some self-denial. - SK on MT’s thoughts.
अन्यदृष्टान्ताः
- अनुष्ठानैर् वर्धते शरीरमन्दिरे स्थितस्य सद्भावाना-स्रोतसः परमात्मनो शक्तिः।
- यथा मल्लो शरीरं संस्करोति प्रत्यहम्, तथा चित्तस्य संस्कार आवश्यकः।
- क्षेत्रे फलं प्राप्तुं यथा कृषिः, तथैव चित्तसंस्कारवृद्धौ व्रतानि। तद्वै तपः।
ज्ञानरक्षणम्
Rituals are important vehicles for transmitting knowledge and cultural values. Examples of knowledge transmitted: The list of naxatra-s via naxatra-sUkta, careful attention to Rta (universal order) and Rtu (season) via observances specific to astronomical (eclipses, lunar phases, positions of sky luminaries) and other events.
Ritual as an abstraction of universal order
“यस्मि॑न्दे॒वा वि॒दथे॑ मा॒दय॑न्ते वि॒वस्व॑त॒: सद॑ने धा॒रय॑न्ते । सूर्ये॒ ज्योति॒रद॑धुर्मा॒स्य१॒॑क्तून्परि॑ द्योत॒निं च॑रतो॒ अज॑स्रा ॥ (In which ritual assembly the deva-s are exhilarated, in the seat of Vivasvat they cause to uphold [the laws] they placed the light in the sun and nights in the moon the two move the splendor in cycles unceasingly.) The deva-s uphold the vrata-s or the laws which govern all existence in the seat of Vivasvat. To the old ārya-s the glowing of the sun, the lunar phases, and the cyclic movement of the sun and the moon in the sky, were embodiments of these laws. That seat of Vivasvat is hence the universe. At its origin the deva-s manifested as those laws. But the seat of Vivasvat is also the ritual assembly where the deva-s are exhilarated with the offerings of the yajamāna. Thus, when the ritualist performs a ritual the ritual arena becomes an abstraction of the seat of Vivasvat.””
Engineering connection
Since ancient days hindu rituals have required and therefore encouraged mathematical and engineering knowledge. shulba-sUtra-s, precise construction of altars, yAga-shAlA-s and temples etc.. Together with it comes complex logistical management.
Contemporary examples:
- kumbha mela
- yAtrA kitchens
- ISKCON here.
उत्तमकलानुभूतिः
- उत्तम-कर्मणाम् लौकिकानाम् अप्य् आदर्शा मानदण्डा वा भवन्ति कर्माणि।
Harmonization of groups
Rituals have acted to bring different groups together, to function harmoniously towards shared ideals. They can be used to bolster unity even in face of threats:
- Intra-group
- Rituals evolve as costly, hard-to-fake signals of commitment to shared group identity and goals. – Christine Legare
- Inter-group
- Routinely temple and group festivals bring together all groups of a village harmoniously.
- Sri Sendalankara Sampathkumara Ramanuja Jeeyar performed a Mahalakshmi Homam at the Pazhangallikkadu village dalit community under islamicization threat [HP2016].
- ektA-yajJNa of saharanpur UP in the context of dalit vs others conflict [AV17]
The medium of ritual
“A well-developed ritualist caste with a powerful oral tradition and specifically a grammatically tradition that allowed preservation of the language, especially in ritual, close to its old Indo-European state” probably explains the thriving of various branches Indo Aryan culture (including Lithuanians - see here, Hindus, Iranians).
“The transmission of customs and conventions, linguistic or otherwise, from one generation to the next is never perfect. Over multiple generations, any sign, symbol, or picture that once conveyed meaning may become completely unrecognizable. This is a problem that was addressed by the semiotician Thomas Sebeok when, in the early 1980s, he was asked by the Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation to prepare a report on how best to encode a warning message on sites where nuclear waste had been buried. To ensure the safety of future generations, the message had to be interpretable for ten thousand years. He recommended extreme redundancy of encoding… But even all of this redundancy, he noted, might prove worthless in ten thousand years. he proposed, was to include a second “metamessage,” with a “plea and a warning” that every 250 years or so the information (including the “metamessage” itself) be re-encoded … Still the possibility would exist that the people of the future would ignore the plea, or forget to comply, so as added insurance he suggests the creation of a sort of folklore, perpetuated through rituals and legends, that would promote the development of a superstition or taboo about the added responsibility of seeing to it that our behest, as embodied in the cumulative sequence of metamessages, is to be heeded … Even if the “priesthood” should forget the original reason for its existence, it is hoped that whatever kind of entity it should evolve into would maintain some sort of authority and sense of responsibility toward passing on the folklore. … Even if the “priesthood” should forget the original reason for its existence… Meaning resides not in the symbol or the image or the language in which it is encoded but in the society that interprets it. New generations are born, societies change, and, with them, the interpretation of meaning. The best shot we had at getting our message across was to try to influence the society of the future—either by entreating it to adapt the encoding of the message to its times or by planting an aura of danger in a broad social tradition.” [In the Land of Invented Languages - GB, FB]
Supernatural effects?
See magic page.