Traditions
Why do Indians…? The customs, answered one at a time
The questions people search at midnight rather than ask an aunt.
3 pages
Each of these has a short answer at the top, the longer explanation underneath, and a note on where the practice differs across India.
Several of them also have a popular explanation that is repeated everywhere and does not survive contact with a source — the hygiene rationale for removing shoes, the nerve-endings account of touching feet. Where that is the case, the page says so plainly and gives the better answer.
New to this? Start with these three
- Touching feetWhat charan sparsh actually means, who does it to whom, when it is expected and when it is not, and why the popular nerve-endings explanation is not the reason.
- Removing shoesWhy footwear comes off at temples and at the door of most Indian homes — what the rule is really about, and why the hygiene explanation is only half true.
- Many godsHow Hinduism holds many deities and one reality at once — what iṣṭa-devatā means, how the traditions differ, and why '33 million gods' is a mistranslation.
Everything in Why do Indians…
Touching feetWhat charan sparsh actually means, who does it to whom, when it is expected and when it is not, and why the popular nerve-endings explanation is not the reason.
Removing shoesWhy footwear comes off at temples and at the door of most Indian homes — what the rule is really about, and why the hygiene explanation is only half true.
Many godsHow Hinduism holds many deities and one reality at once — what iṣṭa-devatā means, how the traditions differ, and why '33 million gods' is a mistranslation.
India,
once a week.
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