Hinduism- or parts of it that has travelled to the east from our land....and when you see the rituals practised towards clearly identifiable Shiva, Vishnu, Ganesh idols, you can see that while they have influences from India, they are largely local...from the flowers in the decoration, to the songs sung, to the meat - goats, chicken, pig etc that is offered in the temple itself. (Clearly the effect that was started by Jainism that has rid most of our Indian Hindu temples off animal offerings has not gone there. That some of our temples are holding on to the practise of animal offering is another subject for another day.) Btw, the most recent cool thing is to offer bubble tea for Ganesh in Thailand. Diabetes fear anyone? No worse than our jaggery and sugar laden modaks you say? Fair enough.
This last question is specifically related to the local gods that are ubiquitous to every nook and cranny in our country. A small diety/shrine that was a anthill- turned snakehill which was on the way to my school where local women worshipped and offered milk, was suddenly painted with turmeric and vermillion one day, then a few years later, became a 'Amman' (Metal face mask of a generic Goddess was installed in front of the crumbling snake-hill) with a shed built over her when I was a teenager. A single-roomed 'Temple' was built around it by the time I had started working. Somewhere along the way, a proper "Amman" idol made of black stone was installed where the original anthill had been located. A priest started working there. When I recently visited Chennai, I saw that the Amman Temple was now larger, and the outer wall painted with white and red and with a proper "praharam" made of metal grillwork around the Central "Amman". This has happened in the last 35-40 years, within my lifetime. (Do I hear encroachment? Misuse of Porramboke land? Yup, all of it is true and more). But this is a microcosm of the evolution of one part of Hinduism happening right in front of our eyes. Just try to apply that over the past several thousand years in widely ranging people and societies across the four directions in our country and then you might get the larger picture of why we are as we are- with diverse practices and equally diverse thoughts about our religion.
(Have you heard of the Bodyguard Muneeswaran Temple in Chennai? This is a story of how some labourers brought their village diety with them to Chennai and set it up near their new place of work, near the Barracks in Park Town. A British Commander who had some objections and asked it to be removed met with an accident. Believing that his accident was a result of his "objections" to the newly arrived god, he let the idol stay where it had been planted. This idol now has a proper temple with regular sevai. This Muni"Easwaran" / a form of Shiva - is believed to protect one from accidents. People buying new vehicles come there for a poojai in the mornings where a line of autos and cars are parked right in front of the temple. I don't know about the vehicles parked there for the poojai, but the traffic in already congested Park Town gets worse for wear for sure on some days due to the temple crowds, leading to scrapes and dents for others)
Now to house-gods. This is a practise relevant in Thanjavur area among some saivaite castes and maybe in other areas as well. Every house in my father's village has a god. Really. They are called Veettu-Deivams. It usually looked similar in most houses' poojai rooms I had seen during my holidays. It was a rectangular portion of the wall, about 2 ft* 1ft, painted in Kaavi (Reddish Brown). And inside it was painted many pattais (three white horizontal stripes with a red dot in the centre - symbol of Shiva) and a few namams (Three vertical stripes -centre one is usually red - symbol of Vishnu). Whenever the oldest male member of a house died, the pattern inside the painting had to be re-painted. Whenever the house underwent painting also, the Veettu Deivam was repainted. And on every Pongal Day? (No, that's not it.) But that patch of the wall was regularly repainted on a yearly basis. And any male member who went to live elsewhere had to paint the same pattern in their Poojai rooms and pray to it on a regular basis. The Pattais and Namams represented their forefathers. These days it has evolved into rectangular wooden tray-like thing that can be hung up anywhere given that mostly people don't live where their grandparents lived -given the large move of the Indian population from rural-farming lives to urban -office going lives. And who can repaint their Pooja rooms on a regular basis anyway? My mother and aunts now repaint their "hang-able" Veettu-Deivams easily from time to time. (Search about this on Google and you wouldn't get a single correct hit for the image. Maybe this practise is totally dying out or is more highly guarded that I would have thought.)
Forgive the rambling. My point is that, we are ever evolving as a species. Let our religion itself evolve just like our religious practises do. Because if we stop to codify and limit Hinduism from absorbing, assimilating, and spreading in different directions (not geographical!!! In thought, in philosophy, in practise, in rituals etc....) we stop evolving. And from history the one thing we can learn is that when something stopped evolving, it dwindled and then died. So for those die-hard right wingers and self-appointed protectors of Hinduism out there, if you want several more generations of your descendants to enjoy this beautiful religion of Hinduism (provided the earth is not destroyed by a meteor...global warming...yada yada), be accepting of adaptations we must do in order to keep our religion evolving and thereby relevant through the glorious ages yet to come.
