Optional Religious Practices

For the pious individual there is a vast panoply of ways to invest his or her energy. One of the most popular with women is the one- or two-day fast. For Buddhists and those with Buddhist priests, this means above all the astamt vrata, a fast in the name of Bodhisattva Amoghapasa Lokesvara, which occurs each month on the eighth day of the waxing moon.

Hindus fast for the god Narayana (Visnu) on the eleventh day of the waxing moon, and also often perform a fast over several days called the Satya Narayana pujd when they have some special reason to celebrate or a particular wish to be fulfilled. At the end of the holy month of Kartik a few women undertake a five-day fast to Karunamaya or Narayana and at the end of it are fetched by their husband and led home in triumph with a band playing. In the old days this fast was often undertaken for a whole month with the women consuming nothing except the holy water in which the deity had been bathed. Every year in the month of Magh (January- February) Hindu women, both Newar and non-Newar, observe the fast of Svasthani, a uniquely Nepali goddess identified with Siva's wife Parvati.

Even if they cannot fast they read the stories associated with the fast and the goddess every evening. This practice, like of that of Gai (cow) Jatra, has spread from the Newars to other groups in Nepali society and is almost universal throughout the middle hills of modern Nepal.

A less taxing but longer-term practice is simply the service of a deity, visiting his or her temple every day for a month, or even a year. This is undertaken by both men and women, though men predominate. Some treat this as little more than a regular morning walk; but in the month of Kartik, when it is both dark and very cold at 5 am, rather more commit­ment is required. At certain important shrines regular devotees join in the recitation of Sanskrit prayers every morning, a form of devotion which is open to all and highly valued. On holy days, in the morning, and sometimes also in the evening just for the fun of it, groups of men gather to sing hymns: the ancient style is highly percussive and the words are usually in old forms of Maithili and Bengali, imported from the plains of India centuries ago; the newer style, introduced in the last sixty years or so, makes use of the accor­dion and in this style new hymns, composed in the local vernaculars (Newari and Nepali) are sung. These hymn groups are usually organised as zguthi with certain fixed duties and an annual feast, but membership is optional.

Those with money have numerous possibilities for approved forms of merit-making: donating a fitting or decoration to a temple, founding a Buddhist caitya or Hindu Sivaliriga, building a wayside shelter, establishing a guthi for the annual performance of a ritual to one’s favoured deity. In recent times more modern forms of religious activity have received sponsorship: publishing religious pamphlets (usually in the name of a dead parent or relative), writing for religious magazines, establishing health clinics, religious schools and other types of social service. Buddhist medita­tion camps and Buddhist, Hindu or interdenominational conferences have become regular events.

Another way of dividing up religious practices is to consider the individual’s motivations. Where compulsory religious practices are concerned the motives are obviously diffuse: there is no need for an individual to ask him or herself why it is being done and the practice goes on out of a general desire to satisfy the gods, perpetuate tradition and avoid any ill consequences (divine retribution, social obloquy) which might follow the evasion of one’s religious duty. Optional religious practices on the other hand are undertaken with more precise aims in mind.

One final type of optional religious practice which is equally important in Buddhism and Hinduism is initiation into the cult of a given Tantric deity. In one way this is the most onerous practice of all, for henceforth come what may one must perform the required ritual and say one’s prayers every day before eating. Tantric initiations are restricted to high castes and to certain closely defined groups within other castes (e.g. men of the painter caste, who must be allowed into Tantric shrines in order to paint images and wall-hangings). The deities associated with Tantric practice are strictly secret; their shrines are enclosed rooms on the first floor of a monas­tery or of special god-houses, or on the second floor if in a private home. It is widely believed that looking at a Tantric deity whom one is not entitled to see causes blindness or madness.

Tantric deities are usually represented in coitus with a female partner and sexual symbolism is central to Tantric ritual. It cannot be too heavily emphasised however that, though everyone knows of their existence, these deities and rituals really are secret: only thus is it possible for them to coexist with the highly moral and ascetic tendencies of exoteric (non-Tantric) Buddhism and indeed Hinduism. Through the use of meat, alcohol and sexual symbolism, which in other contexts are forbidden or disapproved of, the secret truth is taught that everything is emptiness (for Buddhists) or Siva (for Hindus). Tantric deities are taken to be the highest, innermost and ultimate nature of the divine, of which other divinities and indeed the whole world are just outer forms. Thus it is that, though for most of the population their significance is opaque, the whole of Newar religion is permeated by Tantric symbols. And priests invoke the presence and pro­tection of Tantric deities on behalf of their clients as part of almost every ritual, whether or not the client himself has initiation.