[Advaita-l] mleccha-s not eligible to take Hinduism??

V Subrahmanian v.subrahmanian at gmail.com
Thu Jun 28 05:21:42 CDT 2012


Apart from the 'mixing' of varNas due to marriage and the offspring through
such marriage being / becoming eligible for upanayana, there is another way
also in which this comes about:  There are many childless couples who wish
to adopt a child.  A brahmin couple known to me adopted a male child of
about one year.  The adoption Agency does not, as a policy, reveal the
background of the child.  So the adoptive parents do not know the varNa of
the child. When he was about eight years this couple performed his
upanayanam,  Now, on observation, we can say that infants coming for
adoption are extremely rarely from brahmin community or even the others of
the traivarnikas.  The adoptive parents are most likely getting a child
from a non-traivarnika community, or even different religion.  Yet, a legal
adoption, makes this child theirs and this couple performed the upanayanam
as in the case of any other brahmin boy.  And this 'brahmin' brahmacharin
can even take up veda adhyayana, and become a purohit and even marry a
brahmin bride.

I just mentioned this as an additional way in which one gets a brahmin
lineage continuing, without being sure of the varNa of the adopted child.

There were and are rarely cases where childless couples adopted someone
from their relatives.  Here there is no unknown factor as above.  But in a
large majority of cases it is unknown alone and the brahmaNa lineage gets
going with upanayanam and veda adhyayanam.  I am not saying this is right
or wrong.  I only mentioned the vastu sthitiH.

subrahmanian.v

I recently heard this from a Kannada smArta family:  They have a son who
> works in a small hotel as a cashier and finding a match for him was a great
> difficulty.  They told me that many smarta/madhwa families have started
> taking brides from a Lingayat sub-sect called 'panchama sAli'.  It is
> learned that this sect is authorised to perform puja (archaka) in
> Shiva/Devi Temples.  When my friend's family went to a house of this
> community to see a prospective bride, they informed them that the elder
> sister of this girl is married into a Madhwa family in Bangalore who gave
> them (the bride's family) a decent sum of money apart from spending money
> for the marriage themselves.  I heard that this practice of (arranged)
> inter-marriage  between brahmins and panchama sAli-s is now becoming
> popular.
>
> So, smarta/madhwa families are getting 'cosmopoliton'.  I mentioned this
> not as  a non-advaitic topic but since the discussion on conversion, etc.
> is initiated now.  Many say those  brahmana men in the purohita profession
> also face this difficulty and this solution is becoming popular.
>
> subrahmanian.v
>
>>
>>
>



More information about the Advaita-l mailing list