Religion says: don't die the wrong Day or five Family Members will die, too!

Religion says: don’t die the wrong Day or five Family Members will die, too! – 2 Jan 13

Post author:Balendu
Post published:02/01/2013
Post category:Sadness
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The time after Ammaji’s death until now was very intensive. There were obviously lots of emotions on the inside which I have already written about. Additionally however there was lots of input from outside, too, lots of things that stirred thoughts which I wrote down in notes so that I can elaborate on them in my diary whenever there is time. Of course, there is a lot to write about because death is one of the biggest miracles of life and people have always created lots of stories around it, religion embraced them and in this way customs and traditions were formed. Today I want to write about another Hindu concept that becomes important for people when someone dies in their family: Panchak.

Let me explain you what Panchak is. In the Hindu calendar, everything is calculated according to the moon. In its complete cycle, the moon goes through all zodiac signs and in the end it goes through the signs Aquarius and Pisces. In one zodiac sign the moon stays for about two and a half days, even a bit less. The period of Panchak is while the moon is in Aquarius and Pisces, thus nearly five days long and occurs every month.

According to Hindu belief, if someone dies in the period of Panchak, in those five days, it means a lot of bad luck. That much, actually, that another five people of the same family will die. They can only be saved through a special ceremony that the family has to perform.

At Ammaji’s cremation, we were asked by someone if we had checked the timing and had seen whether Ammaji had died in that Panchak time. I said we don’t believe in this and we don’t need to even check. Even if we got to know that it was in that time, it would not mean anything to us and we would not do any ritual to save ourselves.

It is true, it doesn’t mean anything to us but obviously it means a lot to a lot of religious people! They get scared and afraid and are thus forced by their fear to perform another ritual. Many people have said in the past that I saw religion in a very negative light. Please tell me, if this idea of Panchak does not make an already troubled family unnecessarily afraid, what does it do? A family has lost one of its members, they all are sad and heartbroken and then you tell them that five more of them will die! That is heartless and cruel. To me, it is just another proof that religion is based on creating fear in people.

What happens in small families? Where maybe only three members are left? Will they just all die? A complete family eradicated by a bad timing of death. This tradition is complete nonsense which can be proven simply by the fact that nothing happens to people who have no idea about the concept of Panchak. In their families, nobody dies – or does such a thing only apply to Hindus?

Being reminded of this religious superstition only convinced us again that we did not want to do any rituals or ceremonies but simply mourn our loss and remember Ammaji with much love.