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217 4 Hinduism LAURIE L. PATTON Recent work on childhood in India has made the crucial point that the child is defined by what the child is not. As the classical literature on childhood has also argued, there are several ways we can think about the idea of the “child” and its opposite.1 We can understand a child as a small homunculus, with lesser physical capacities than the adult, but with the same basic makeup. We can romanticize the child as a creature of innocence, closer to the sources of life (both “wild” and “divine”) than adults. We can think of the child as a being yet to be formed psychologically and therefore faced with a variety of “developmental” challenges. We can mine the child as a potential source of labor. These various ways of conceptualizing childhood in India are not only ways of categorizing groups of children; rather, the figure of the child also has a role in the relationships between adult social groups. In the context of colonialism, the people “ruled” are also likened to children. Their “primitive” nature is likened to the childhood of humanity, and their innocent/ threatening qualities are the lenses through which the rulers view their subjects. It is important to note at the outset that the term “Hinduism” as such is a construct, and does not reflect a singular entity, but rather a set of plural practices with some loose resemblance to one another. “Hinduism” as such was not used as a term until, at the very earliest, the tenth century in India, and only came into common parlance during the late Moghul and early British colonial periods. What is more, during the period of British rule, in a variety of interreligious polemics between colonial missionaries, colonial administrators, orthodox Hindu leaders, and less orthodox Hindu reformers, we see a grappling with the presence of CHILDREN AND CHILDHOOD IN WORLD RELIGIONS 218 multiple religions, and with the abstract idea of “religion” as such, and even more, “Hinduism” as such. All of these dynamics are in play in the understanding of children within the complex and diverse set of traditions we now call “Hinduism.” Two specific dynamics are most prominent with Hindu ideologies: first, the idea of the child as “ritually formed” as he or she goes through the various stages of becoming an adult; and second, the idea of the child as closer to the divine, especially in mythological and iconographic traditions. In many texts, there is an interaction between these two ideas, where the human child can contain some of the divine within, and gods can be depicted as very human children. Due to the general scope of this chapter, our discussion of these dynamics can be only representative and not exhaustive. Early Texts Beginning with the compositions of the Vedas, the earliest of which is dated by most scholars to around 1500 BCE, the idea of childhood, and of the overall life cycle, is bound up with a sacrificial ideology and way of life. “Veda” means knowledge, and the four Vedas constellate around the mechanics of sacrifice—Rig- (Verses); Sama- (Chants); Yajur- (Ritual procedures); Atharva- (Incantations) Veda. The Rig Veda is thus literally “Knowledge of the Verses,” sacred mantras recited during sacrificial performance. Although the particular ways of life and prescriptions for conduct are no longer followed in contemporary India, the Vedas have created the basis for much of both classical and contemporary Hinduism. The ancient Vedic tribes, calling themselves “Aryan” or “noble,” understood the daily, monthly, and yearly offerings to the gods as the “machinery” of the universe—that action which caused the world to be orderly, helped the seasons to turn, and the sun to rise and set as expected. Thus, from the Vedas onward, the birth of a son is a crucial part of a prosperous life and lineage, and guarantees a good ritual death.2 We can see this as early as Rig Veda 5.78, the hymn to Saptavadhri (Doc. 6–1). As legend has it, the sage Saptavadhri was called upon to help a king beget a child. When this event did not occur, the sage was thrown into the trough of a tree, and chanted a hymn to help himself both escape his arboreal prison and to help a child be born alive. The basic childhood rituals of the late Vedic period can be glimpsed in the domestic texts called Grihya Sutras.3 [3.138.101.95] Project...

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