[Advaita-l] How to become a Hindu?

[Sriram Krishnamurthy]

Satish,
Can you perform the Vratyastoma for the people who want to convert back to
Hinduism?

Regards,
Sriram

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 11:27 AM, Satish Arigela <satisharigela at yahoo.com>wrote:

> >The vrAtyastoma and/or hiraNyagarbha vidhi was used to convert non Vedic
> and
> >even foreign invaders to the varNa system.
>
> >Some inscriptions also indicate that foreigners embraced the sanAtana
> >dharma, for example, the one mentioning that Heliodorus was a bhAgavata.
> >Also, there are examples where Indian Kings married hUNa princesses who,
> >along with the children, were absorbed into Hinduism.
>
>
> I page 150 is not in the preview part so I could not read it.
>
> From what I have read and heard such absorptions were limited only to the
> Royalty i.e. Kings, Queens, Princes/Princesses and not to the general
> public.
>
> Even then they were looked upon as "dubious kShatriya-s" for obvious
> reasons.
>
> Power & Money indeed can change many things and even buy a varNa status
> from
> ancient times!
>
> When Hinduism traveled to Cambodia, Indonesia, & Bali some lay  population
> were
> converted to shaiva mata. We still have Hindu-s there  who practice ancient
> shaiva and other rites.
>
>
> The following is my imagination based on various readings and could be
> wrong:
> --It looks like the rites were performed for them only because they were
> Kings
> and are in power
> and not acceding to their request can bring harm.--
>
> But coming back to the main topic of discussion:
>
> let us go into some detail here-- What does the tANDya brAhmaNa or the
> other
> texts quoted say about the varNa of the one who is absorbed into the Hindu
> fold?
> How is varNa decided in this case?
>
> If the rite was indeed performed to absorb foreigners who do not belong to
> any
> Royalty(they of-course will be called kShatriya-s - dubious or otherwise)
> there
> surely must have been some guidelines about the assigning a varNa to those
> people. Do the texts say anything in this regard?
>
> More questions: Now if we accept that indeed a vrAtyastoma can be performed
> on a
> foreign king and make him a kShatriya.. can he be taught veda? If yes what
> stops
> a smArta teacher from performing such a vrAtyastoma for an avarNa who is an
> Indian and make him a brAhmaNa and teach him veda?
>
> It is keeping in mind this issue that I said what initiatory ritual must be
> performed should be left to the teacher who is accepting the student i.e. a
> sectarian dIkSha or a dIkSha into the smArta system itself by giving the
> student
> non-vedic mantra-s(This is not something new..)
>
> SRA.
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Archives: http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/
> http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.culture.religion.advaita
>
> To unsubscribe or change your options:
> http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/advaita-l
>
> For assistance, contact:
> listmaster at advaita-vedanta.org
>