The taboos of Hindus are of various origins – mythological, historical, religious, totemic, medical, numerological, cultural and astrological.
Some of the important taboos under the cultural category are the ones like prohibition against –
- Talking while defecating
- Urinating while standing,
- Sewing a cloth by evening
- The daughter-in-law sitting at the threshold of a house at anytime
- Blowing off the flame of a lamp
- Hitting an animal with a broom
- Sleeping with feet stretched southwards (a position which only a dead body should be laid in)
- Tightening a cot’s ropes after the sunset
- Shaking one’s leg while sitting
- Rubbing one’s feet against the floor
- Using the grain grinder on the full moon day
- Using the half burnt wick of a lamp the next day
- Creating sound by striking two iron pieces
- Writing one’s name with a piece of coal on the ground
- Burning the other end of a burnt wooden piece
- Passing a crematorium or a burial place clad in white and perfumed clothes
- Eating food while sitting on a cot
- Women washing their head immediately after any family member’s (particularly a man’s) departure for some other place
- Living in a house whose door faces south