The Recovering Choir Director

I have been blessed with the acquaintance of an Indian graduate student of a conservative family of the Brahmin (priestly) caste, and recently over curried chickpeas and eggplant Parmesan we had a revealing discussion about matters concerning our respective religious practices.

It happens that what the Latin church calls aggiornamento, or updating under the guise of making relevant to today’s people, is a hot-button topic in her local Hindu community as well. A key issue is the relevance of Sanskrit, Hinduism’s liturgical language, in modern Hindu liturgy. As it is reserved for the brahmins, there is no real incentive for members of other castes to learn it. And since there apparently has been no effort to cultivate a love for the liturgical heritage, there have been demands from amongst certain parties to celebrate the sacred rites in the vernacular (in this case Tamil).

What follows are some of the things that stood out in her commentary on the issue.

• The brahmins have throughout history been prone to abusing their power, perhaps this is a backlash. I was impressed that a member of this class would admit such a thing quite openly.
• She attended a wedding ceremony conducted in Tamil, and due to the vernacular’s usage, a whole library of (Sanskrit) chants and music was shut out, along with, more importantly, a palpable sense of the sacred.
• Another wedding ceremony was conducted in Sanskrit due to the brahmin’s defense of the use of the language. He had said to the bride, “We know that you don’t understand it, but we will explain it to you. Please consider the traditional language, it is good for you in more ways than you know.” The bride assented, thinking, “If this is true, why refuse a good thing? I also have the opportunity to know what he said anyway.”
• She mentioned studies, apparently scientifically based, on the positive effects of Sanskrit on the populace vis à vis the vernacular in liturgical functions.

All in all, quite an interesting interfaith dialogue.

On a side (but related) note, I played her excerpts from Vivaldi’s Gloria and Allegri’s Miserere and had her look at faithful English translations of both. She found both quite enjoyable. After the listening session she mentioned that, while she went to Catholic schools, she was hardly exposed to Catholic history, culture or music.

Funny, I can say the exact same thing.