Hereditary Priest Guru for your Rituals

I yesterday described one type of guru, the preacher guru. Today I would like to write about the next type, a guru who believes to be predestined to be a guru by birth:

2. Hereditary Priest Guru for your Rituals

The first indication for this kind of guru is that he comes from a full family of priests. It is thus logical for him to follow the tradition of his family and to become a priest, too. These priests can be temple priests but they don’t have to be!

In Hinduism life is very much connected with religion and with religious rituals. The rituals start before you are even born and they go on until after your death. Just as the Catholic believe in their main seven rituals, Hindus have 16 of these main rituals. They include a ritual before you are born, one at your birth, with your first food, etc. And of course you need a priest to perform each one of them.

What would make more sense than asking the priest of your birth to be at your wedding? And if he is too old, what about his son? Yes, that is how it works, you have a family priest, someone who does all rituals for you. And once he doesn’t anymore, his son does. And he is a very respected person, a guru. There is even a word to describe his customers: Yajmaan.

These gurus may not have to learn as much as yesterday’s gurus, but they also need to know the scriptures where their rituals are concerned. They have to know enough mantras to be able to perform the rituals without flaws. Mostly however, because it is their job by tradition, many of these priests like to get all the respect but don’t even know the meaning of what they are saying. They should but I have seen many who certainly don’t.

For these priests, the guru profession can bring them quite some wealth. They take fees for doing their ritual and then those rituals often include a donation to the priest in gold, silver, clothes, pots and more – because that is written in the scriptures.

My maternal grandfather’s father was the priest for a king and the king’s family. Instead of following the steps of their father however, all four sons took different professions. My grandfather joined the nation’s secret service. This is how this tradition ended in the family of my mother.

When I travelled here in India, I always had one or two of these priests with me. In this way we were flexible to do a ritual anywhere at any time and with several more people.

So this type of guru can but does not need to have deep knowledge and mostly gets work because his father was working at the same places. Tomorrow I will write about another type of guru who works in a very different way.