Thursday, December 3, 2009

Myth : Do not wipe out waste material in night else Laxmi will go out: Logical Reason

Do not wipe out waste material in night else Laxmi will go out.

In many of Indian families old people still say do not wipe out waste material in night else Laxmi(goddess of wealth, prosperity and money) will go out. In ancient time wise people must have created this rule/myth with a very logical reason.

I had no clue of logical reason of this for a long time but I found it when I was in 8th.

My 8th standard board exams were going on and I used to go to my friends place for study .

One fine day when we I woke up I heard my friend’s sister was crying because she lost her engagement ring and entire family was searching for it.

My friend and I asked her “when you saw your ring last time in your finger”.

She said “I am sure it was in my finger till yesterday nights electricity failure and I am not sure after that”.

We asked “what you did after that time?” she answered “she cooked food, cleaned home and finished her dinner”.

I heard cleaned home and said to my friend “Laxmi ji bahar gai” that means Laxmi went out. We quickly reached to the place where she collected all the waste material after wiping home as in Indian custom we don’t throw material to dustbin in night.

We searched in that waste material and we found the ring and of some ice creams too from sister.

At that time I realised how Laxmi will go out if throw you wiped waste material in night.

In ancient time when this myth or ritual came in existence people had only candle light in most of the homes that is not enough for identifying what is there in this wiped material. So they said wipe your home and collect all the material at a place and you can throw that out in morning.

Please put your opinion

Myth: Don’t throw away/waste salt else you will need to collect it by your Eyelids: Logical Reason

This is very famous myth in Malwa and Nimad anchal that “you should not waste salt neither you should throw it away else you will need to collect each wasted particle of salt by your eyelids when you will face god”.

I heard this when I was not more than 14-15 year old and I heard this from guy of my age only. I was not able to believe on this as I always believed on science or logics (thanks to my grandfather) so I asked about this to my grandfather and his reply was something that showed logical reason of this myth. He explained me this with few question answers I would like to post those question and answers here. I can still remember each and every word of that chat

My grandfather: “do you know from where wheat comes”?

Me: From farms.

My Grandfather: What about rice, vegetables and other cereals.

Me: Same answer from farms.

My Grandfather: “do you know from where salt comes”?

Me:“From Sea” (I promptly replied him; luckily I was aware about salt making process because of some story or comics book).

My Grandfather: That’s the reason why they created this myth.

Me: I dint get it; please explain what you mean with this.

My Grandfather: “If you need to buy 1KG salt today you can go to shop and you will get 1KG of salt in 4-5 Rs because today goods transportation is very easy, you can have tons of Salt from coastal region to any part of the country in maximum 2-3 days but in earlier time it was not possible because they used to ship it by bull carts with a limited weight capacity.

Some time it takes several weeks for transportation from coastal region to central or northern region of India. In this transportation transporters bull cart runner had to face lot of problem they had to cross multiple states and follow all the guidelines created by those states for salt transportation. Other than this many more reason was there that made salt very expensive and a material that everyone should use with closed hand.

As salt was very fundamental ingredient of every food material so in ancient time every government/king had to arrange it (some time on government expenses) for providing necessary requirement to their people for smooth command on them.”

My Grandfather Continued: “To save misuse or wastage of salt someone created this myth so everyone will follow it delicately. There could be different theory for origination of this myth like “a king talked with minister for stopping wastage of salt and they suggested that pujari’s should create this myth to aam janta” or “A family leader of big joint family that has lot of children found lot of wasting of salt from child’s and he created this myth so children can avoid wasting it due to fear of god and punishment”. Whatever theory we take logical reason for creating this myth was saving wastage of salt.”

After explaining above thing my grandfather told me “Many myth that we follow in India has logical or scientific reason and before doing a blind faith on any of the myth always think a reason behind it.”

He explained me about touch and don’t touch theory that I will explain in my future post.

I hope it was informative and interesting too.

Your comments will increase my moral to write more J

Myth: Snake capture your image if you kill it, Scientific reason for creating this Myth

In India there are several myths one of them is if you kill a snake and leave it there then counterpart of this snake pair will take revenge from you. The other snake of this snake pair will get to know about you from image that has been captured in dead snake’s eyes.

This myth is there since several years that if you kill a snake it will take a picture of yours in its eyes so if you kill one you should burn it or you should burry it deep in earth for your safety.

As per my opinion this myth was created by wise ancient people with a very scientific and logical reason and half of this statement is true as well “You should burn it or burry it in deep in earth for safety”. I will explain it how.

First let me explain the image myth

When someone kill a snake and watch it from less distance he found his reflection in dead snakes eyes and it feels as if snake captured his/her image but fact is that snakes don’t have eye lids so when snake is dead than also its eyes remain open and it reflect any thing that comes in its range. Image created in snakes eyes due to reflection is very small so it’s impossible to identify who is there in that eye.

I manage to find a Photo that explain what I said above.

In this Image photographer is there in snake Eye

Zoom of above image here you can clearly see photographer in its eye.

Scientific and logical reason why one should burn or burry a dead snake

Even when a snake is dead its poison remains lethal for several hours. To avoid injection or intrusion of this poison to any leaving being by any mean it’s recommended that one should burn or burry a dead snake so its poison can not affect any living being.

To avoid snakes poison to leaving being they forced to burn or burry it

I hope it cleared at least one myth there are lot more to write but not today. It will come day by day.

I hope it was informative and interesting too