A Hin­du is a per­son who ad­heres to Hin­duism, a re­li­gion fol­lowed by the vast ma­jor­i­ty in In­dia. It is more about what peo­ple do than what they think. Each in­di­vid­ual fol­lows a way of life that pro­vides some mean­ing to it. One comes across many im­pro­vi­sa­tions in Hin­du homes. There is no spe­cif­ic ob­jec­tion to de­vi­a­tion or change. The Hin­du way of life is lib­er­al in per­mit­ting space and lib­er­ty to every in­di­vid­ual.

The Hin­du way of life is prin­ci­pal­ly based up­on the teach­ings of the Vedas. The Rig Ve­da, which was record­ed in a form of San­skrit over 3,000 years ago, is the old­est of the four Vedas. It has 1,028 hymns to a pan­theon of Gods. Over the years, the teach­ings have been passed on from one gen­er­a­tion to an­oth­er through mem­o­ri­sa­tion and word of mouth. Two oth­er Vedas, the Ya­jur Ve­da and the Sama Ve­da, lat­er sup­ple­ment­ed the Rig Ve­da. The fourth Ve­da, the Athar­va Ve­da, was added per­haps a hun­dred years lat­er.

The most fun­da­men­tal of all rit­u­als is sac­ri­fice. No liv­ing crea­ture can re­main for one mo­ment with­out breath­ing, think­ing and dream­ing, mere ex­is­tence im­plies ac­tion, even in­ac­tion is a form of ac­tion.

Ac­tions can be neu­tral, be­ing pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive. Ac­tions such as par­tic­i­pa­tion in yag­nas, the var­i­ous rit­u­als of sac­ri­fice bring man in­to con­tact with the high­est state, the deities, we can­not sur­vive with­out par­tic­i­pa­tion, re­wards are on­ly forth­com­ing when we do it con­scious­ly and re­cite with prop­er knowl­edge. Pleas­ing the Gods help and in re­turn, the Gods will help you.

It is through the great be­lief in fire wor­ship; an in­stru­ment of par­tic­i­pa­tion be­came the great sac­ri­fice. The great Vedic Text taught man the rit­u­al of sac­ri­fice, in­volv­ing fire. A large ved­i­cal­tor with a hol­low pit in which of­fer­ings are made in­to the mouth of the fire. There are many forms of fire wor­ship.

An ac­tion which pro­motes the bet­ter­ment of man has of ne­ces­si­ty, the na­ture of a rit­u­al sac­ri­fice. Fire is the all-pu­ri­fi­er; all that is pu­ri­fied by fire is fit for the Gods. When ed­i­ble ma­te­r­i­al is of­fered to a de­ity and placed in­to the fire (Hawan) with the pre­scribed ac­tions and prayers, this is re­gard­ed as a rit­u­al sac­ri­fice.

There are, there­fore, four es­sen­tial in­gre­di­ents for the per­for­mance of a pos­i­tive, re­ward­ing sac­ri­fice, fire of­fer­ings, chants and ac­tions (in­ten­tions/feel­ings), Bho­jan (food), Delk­shi­ma (mon­e­tary of­fer­ing) and re­li­gious con­vic­tions. WIth­out these the sac­ri­fice is re­gard­ed as worth­less.

Hin­dus use it to achieve “Mok­sha,” the lib­er­a­tion of the soul from the cy­cle of re­birth and knowl­edge of one’s true self through a state of uni­ty with Brah­ma, the Supreme Be­ing.

In Vedic sac­ri­fices, of­fer­ings of ghee, food grains are la­dled in­to fires burn­ing in pits in the ground, the priest/s recit­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate mantras. There are dif­fer­ent rit­u­als for each sac­ri­fice, which are ex­plained by the of­fi­ci­at­ing Pun­dit.

Com­mon rit­u­als that are per­formed at home, of­fer­ings to the God­dess of for­tune (Lak­sh­mi) north east di­rec­tion, the cre­ator and God of Ar­chi­tec­ture in the (Vis­vakara­man), in the mid­dle part of the home.

Many Hin­du rites and cer­e­monies take place in a tem­ple set­ting and are di­rect­ed to­ward a God or God­dess, but by no means do all such rit­u­als take place in a tem­ple. In­deed, many Hin­du rit­u­als are dis­tinct­ly do­mes­tic af­fairs, tak­ing place in in­di­vid­ual’s homes. And cer­tain­ly not all rites and cer­e­monies are di­rect­ed to­ward the Gods and God­dess­es. Vir­tu­al­ly every as­pect of Hin­du life, in fact, is marked by rit­u­al ac­tions.

Death is a crit­i­cal mo­ment in the life of a Hin­du, not on­ly be­cause it marks the end of life, but al­so be­cause it marks the tran­si­tion to the next life.

The shrad­dha, fu­ner­al rites, there­fore, are among the most im­por­tant rit­u­als in Hin­duism. Such rit­u­als are called samkaras, rites of pas­sage.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, of­ten, the fam­i­ly will jour­ney to a tirtha, a “cross­ing” of a sa­cred riv­er, at the points af­ter the death and “sink” a por­tion of the de­ceased cre­mat­ed re­mains, fur­ther en­sur­ing a safe pas­sage to the next life.

In Hin­du rit­u­als and cer­e­monies, God is the Supreme Be­ing, there is on­ly one God, though car­ries many dif­fer­ent names.

God is be­lieved to be nev­er far away, liv­ing in a re­mote heav­en, but is in­side each and every soul, in the heart and con­scious­ness wait­ing to be dis­cov­ered. This knowl­edge that God is ever-present gives us hope and courage.

Hin­dus see God in the light shin­ing out of the eyes of hu­mans and crea­tures.

This view of God ex­ist­ing in and giv­ing life to all things is called Pan­the­ism, an all-en­com­pass­ing con­cept; God is both in the world and be­yond it.