Theetu for old age/death

[siananth]

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Hi,
Last month, there was a death in my friends family. his periamma whose age is 90 passed away. Both his parents passed away and so as his periappa. as per rituals, he has to have 1 year (or is it 30 days?) theetu, preventing him to do what he wants. given that the death is normal, age-wise, etc why have such constraints on theetu for this given condition only.

 

[Mohaar02]

sir,

few basic thoughts
as per dharma sasthras we should not reduce the theethu per our convinience. sasthra is very strict in this. you have not mentioned whether the deceased is from his father side or mother side. If father's side yes it is for one year and if mother side 30 days . you mentioned that this is preventing him to do something he wants. there are certain things which we can do during those mourning days also. since you not told what is the task i stop my comments here itself.

I dont know whether this a self made assumption or universal truth we hindus why try to find loopholes in anything related to religion. I didnt see a muslim making excuses for not doing namaz or a christian in not following anything regarding religion. not to be taken on the hard side just as a food for thought.

 

[asadu]

Sir,
You may read from "Rituals - Anthyeshti Anthim Karyams " thread by shri kgopalan, where he has described all the rules, regulations, relations and theetu explicitely.http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/showthread.php?t=8139. There are some other posts also by him in detail on this subject. Theetu is considered only for the first 12 days and thereafter it is only for the heirs and dayathis that some strictures are laid. Since the deceased person is above 90 years, some relaxation is allowed as the death is at very old age, i.e. the death is after full happy life enjoyed in earth. If the person concerned is going to perform the karma for the first year, then he as to adhere to some basic rules. Nowadays, there are many half baked vadhyars in tamil nadu who for their own benefit and to milk the most, utter any non-sense. Kinldy go through the links provided above for clear picture.

 

[siananth]

Thank you sir. i think it his father side-his father's (already expired) eldest bro (already expired)'s wife (@age 86). your point on that we hindus or us, finding loopholes to bypass the rituals and writings is a great statement.

But on the other side, some rituals were written for an old environment which may not be relevant to the current environment. dont we need to modify to suit- not in general but with more scientific rationale. I would love to listen to your thoughts.

sir,

few basic thoughts
as per dharma sasthras we should not reduce the theethu per our convinience. sasthra is very strict in this. you have not mentioned whether the deceased is from his father side or mother side. If father's side yes it is for one year and if mother side 30 days . you mentioned that this is preventing him to do something he wants. there are certain things which we can do during those mourning days also. since you not told what is the task i stop my comments here itself.

I dont know whether this a self made assumption or universal truth we hindus why try to find loopholes in anything related to religion. I didnt see a muslim making excuses for not doing namaz or a christian in not following anything regarding religion. not to be taken on the hard side just as a food for thought.

 

[Mohaar02]

-Dear siananth,
Once a devotee of Maha periyava reached out to him and said “ Periyava , the times are changing now, whatever that is ordinated to us by sasthras are hard to follow in these present days. As you are great sage of our times why shouldn’t you write a new dharma sasthram based on the current world. “
Periyava smiled and replied “I can do that .. But down the line in 50 or 100 years whatever I write today will be felt as hard to follow for the upcoming generations and one fine day there will be a similar request to my successor in the peetam to amend what I write today or to create a new one and this trend will continue for generations. Only the modified structure will exist in the world and the original thing what great maharishis wrote will disappear permanently and there will be no trace of those great works. “Kali purush” will not allow us to follow the sastras as it written but we should follow to the maximum we can without excuses.
There is a similar question to sringeri Acharya once and this was his reply.
The main function of the Amnaya peetas established by Jagadguru Sankara bagavath padha Acharya is to govern the vedic culture as it is and not to create anything new or delete or modify any rules. So the urge is to follow as it as to the maximum possible extent without excuses.
Here is the second part of my thoughts:
Again, Not to be taken on the hard side.. Just food for thought.
“Nowadays, there are many half baked vadhyars in tamil nadu who for their own benefit and to milk the most, utter any non-sense.” –
If we think deep , who is responsible for this ? . To cope up with the “modern world” we started to avoid the vedic education which caused a decline in the pool of vedic experts available. Again , if complain that vadhyars are demanding more, Just remember they don’t have a better secured life than a office goer. As persons are strugging with their “Pre-determined and negotiated” salaries to make life comfortable. We should really think of the positions of vadhyars. We can switch jobs for a hike and what can they do ?. Price rise is a common issue for anyone in india. Before making a sambhavana to vadhyar just remember that vadhyars also have a family and commited to the welfare of the same. The traditional system of keeping one vadhyar as a family vadhyar is also slowly disappearing. This may be too harsh but sorry when are we going to stop criticizing vadhyars since the root cause lies with us? . I see it as a common phenomenon across our households. I could see people bargaining with vadhyars and paying the mentioned(even if at premium price) without any bargains in malls and supercenters.
Just one rationale from my side:
As per your mention the person in question is a dayathi for the family in death. In the first note you have said this mourn is preventing the person in doing some of what he wanted to do. Now I think I need to enter that zone to get or provide some more clarity. I will continue this view in my next post.

 

[siananth]

great reply. i started doing most of rituals after seeing how much passion that each muslim does as per quran. they dont normally question. may be if they question, they are killed. to vadhyars, ya some of them are becoming a monetary based activity, nevertheless we cannot blame them as an excuse for us not doing it. i do my best. thanks sir for your kind advise. i do myself amavasai tharpanam and so any materials would be helpful, if you can send.