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Rituals and Beliefs of Mayamara Vaishnavite Community of Majuli Island

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Rituals and Beliefs of Mayamara Vaishnavite Community of Majuli Island JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 Rituals and Beliefs of Mayamara Vaishnavite Community of Majuli Island Dilip Das Assistant Teacher,797 No. Danghdhara LPS, Lakhimpur ABSTRACT: This paper seeks to explore the rituals and beliefs related to birth, puberty, marriage and death of mayamara vaishavite community of Majuli Island. This study is based on first-hand observation of this unique religious group. This paper has been divided into three sections. First section explores birth rituals, second part deals with rituals related with puberty, maturation and marriage. Finally, third section of the paper presents death rituals of the vaishavite community. It is observed that mayamara community people practice some unique religious ceremony in their life cycle. KEYWORDS: Vaishnavism, Mayamara Vaishnavite Community, Rites and Ritual, Matak-Kaibartta, Majuli Island. I. INTRODUCTION Systematic enquiry of the ritual phenomenon in human society is a field of investigation of fairly recent origin. A host of scholars from sociology, social anthropology, psychology are become interested in the field of rituals in early part of 19th century. In the ethnographic description of rituals in diverse culture given by scholars like Edward Tylor, James Frazer, Bronislaw Malinowski, Emile Durkheim and many others used the term ritual to denote two separate sets of activities. The first in the sphere of religious activities (prayer, ceremonial worship, chanting, arrange of gestures and movement, activities with sacred object) which practice with specific intension of spiritual communication with a Supreme Being. Second sets of human activities are identified as rituals are those associated with individual life cycle as they move from one social setting to the next. These are universally and naturally occur in all societies in the world. These are considered as a never-ending process of human life. Smith (1889) and Frazer (1890) construct rituals and used the term to described religious life in a comparative context. Max Gluckman (1965) conceptualised „ritual‟ as a conventionalised set of performances which are believed to “protect, purify or enrich the participants and their group” by mystical means beyond sensory observation and control. Ritual performs many functions in individual life and society as a whole. Ritual can channelise and express emotion, guide and strengthen with additional personnel forms of behaviour, assist or challenge the status quo, bring about change or restore harmony and balance. The evolutionary scholars like Tylor, Frazer, Morgan and others explain religion as an evolving belief system. Rituals are understood as the first stage of this evolution. Tylor termed original stage of ritual as „magic‟ or the pre-religious stage or the animistic stage. Tylor in his book Primitive Culture (1958) goes on to define rituals as practices in his animistic stage that are emotive to the point of being dramatic, non-rational and rooted in magical beliefs. On the other hand functionalist viewed ritual is a social phenomena which established an inter relationship between society and religion. According to Durkheim, ritual is a human behavior that takes place in the domain of the sacred. Following Durkheim‟s view point, Talcott Parsons opinion in his book Sociology of Religion is that rituals are human practices within the realm of the sacred which are characterised by their essential non-rational or transcendental nature. Parsons also opinion that unlikely human rational behaviour are occurs within a means-end relationship but rituals behaviour exists outside the means-end relations. Sigmund Freud, a Psychoanalytic, in his book Totem and Taboo defines rituals as those notable non-rational or formalised symbolic beliefs of any kind which are distinct from pragmatic, belief that is rationally linked to empirical goal. Modern social and cultural anthropologists have tried to provide a men interpretation of religious practices by treating rituals as a symbolic components of a culture. Edmund Leach defined rituals as culturally oriented behaviourial patterns which seek to make a symbolic statement about beings relationship with a Supreme Being. North-East region of India with diversity of communities, cultural and religious group reveals a rich variety of rituals performed at birth, puberty, adulthood, marriage, death etc. Assam the heart of north-east region constituted divers ethnic group having their own culture and religion. Saint Srimanta Sankaradeva (1949-1568 AD) has been proselytising a revision of orthodox Hinduism popularly known as neo-vaishnavism. After demise of the vaishavite saint the vaishnavism has divide into four independent sectarian division calls Samhati/Sanghati viz. Brahma-samhati, Purush-samhati, Nika-samhati and Kal-samhati and gradually some 3925 JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 other sub-sets and semi-sub-sects seem to have appeared within the body of the vaishnava order. Mayamara is one of prominent sub-sets of vaishnavism of Assam developed by Sri Sri Aniruddhadeva (1553-1627) a nephew of Sankaradeva. The monastery establish by Aniruddhadeva is called as Mayamara Satra. He was a disciple of Gopla Ata (1476-1541), founder of the Kala-Samhati order of Assam vaishnavism. Scholars use various terms such as Moamara, Moamariya, Mayamariya, Mayamara, Matak, Moran etc. to mean both religious sect and a community consisting of its followers. Different of communities of Assam such as Maran, Matak, Ahom, Chutia, Kaibartta, Bodo, Matak-Kaibartta follows Mayamara vaishnava religion. Majuli is second largest river island in the world that enormously deserve the glory of a global heritage site for its unique beauty and cultural creativity of indigenous communities. The Matak-Kaibartta is one of indigenous ethnic group who preserve mayamara cultural in this island since 17th century. The primary concern of this Paper is to provide an overall idea about the rites and rituals performed at different stages of life of mayamara vaishnavite community people of Majuli Island. II. METHODS AND MATERIALS The study was based on field observation on rituals and religious conviction of Matak-Kaibartta people of Majuli during their socio-religious activities. Both primary and secondary data are used for the study. Primary data has been collected in irregular intervals in three homogeneous mayamara community inhabited village viz. Deka Senchowa, Senchowa Alengiati and Bhuramara No. 2 of Majuli Island during 2011-12. While secondary data are collected from books, articles, research papers and unpublished research work. Data are analyses through descriptive method. TABOO FOR PREGNANT WOMEN A pregnant woman can do every household work. But she is restricted to do hard work. She is not allowed to go outside at dusk or early morning so that evil spirit may harass her. She is not allowed to cross river because women body remains weak at that time. She is also not allowed to visit cremation ground. They believe if a maternity visit cremation ground may delay her delivery even child may dead before birth. Pregnant woman is not allowed to sit on stone and threshold. A pregnant woman is prohibited to sew clothe, even it is prohibited to push thread in needle. They believe if pregnant women do so the baby will be birth as blind or lamb. They believe maternity should not see solar or lunar eclipse and should not keep step on earth during earthquake. After earthquake maternity takes bathe. They believe if a pregnant woman watch eclipse the womb baby may damage and born as lamb. She is also not allowed to come near to snake bitten person. Another important taboo is that a pregnant woman or a prospects father should not kill anything and tie-up something with rope. They consider if prospects father do so baby may tie-up itself with nerve and dead inside stomach. A pregnant woman need not observe much dietary restriction. She is restricted to eat spadix, pine apple, twin banana etc. A pregnant woman is prohibited from having physical contact with her husband from three months of pregnancy. BIRTH RITUAL After giving birth of child defilement (asauca) is observed for one month. Only boiled rice provides for two days to the maternity. In third day special dish jaldia is offered to her. After completion of seven days lineage wash cloths clean house and household‟s utensil. Maternity is not allowed to go out of premises up to one month since it is treated as asauca. During asauca family member cannot attend in any religious activity. After completion of one month they perform xudi. On this day father shaves the child hair. They approached to satradhikar of nearest satra for naming of the new born. Sometime, parents naming the child following same alphabet of the name given by satradhikar. Before eruption of milk teeth, boiled rice is given to mouth of the child by maternal uncle. This ceremony is known as annaprasana. III. RITUAL OF PUBERTY AND MENSTRUATION Girl‟s puberty takes place at first menstruation. Mayamara community people termed first menstruation of a girl as pushpita. They practices ritualistic function at first menstruation of a girl call tulanibiya. When a girl menstruates for first time they believe she has stepped into adulthood. Girl‟s mother calls aioties to do primary rituals of first menstruation. Aioties were entering the girl into a detach room wearing her plain silk cloth by chanting uluni. She has to stay in this room for four days. Male person is not allowed into this room. She has to sleep on straw surface. In fourth days aioties are invited to fulfill first ceremonial bathe call saridinia. After completion of bathe aioties set around the girl and welcome her to new stage of life. Parents move toward a priest for looking a good day for tulanibiya. If priest advice them to performed tulanibiya within seventh, ninth 3926 JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 19, 2020 or eleven day without keeping fasting, they believe that the girl has bright future.
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