--> Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from October 19, 2007


Becoming Hindu Priests

Young Hindu boys getting trained to become priests in a School of Vedas in New Delhi is discussed intelligently by Rama Lakshmi in this article in the Washington Post. The residential Vedic School is located in a busy area in Delhi and here amidst all distractions of materialism, the young boys are studying to become a link in an unbroken tradition whose exact origin is yet to be pinpointed. The day for this young priest trainees begin at 4:45 AM Rama Lakshmi writes Sriram Sharma, a thin 13-year-old with large eyes and a shy smile, folds his sheet and mat and stacks them on the open stone shelf on the wall. He then steps tentatively into the cold shower and comes out shivering and chanting under his breath. Sriram has lived at the school for more than two years, memorizing and reciting the hymns from the Hindu religion's oldest texts, called the Vedas. After six more years of training at the School of Vedas , he will become a Hindu priest who can perform prayer