Culture Of Deo " Deo Samaj "

Culture Of Deo

Maithili, an Eastern Indic language, is spoken in Mithila. Maithili has previously been considered a dialect of both Hindi and Bengali. Today Maithili, is recognized in the Eighth Schedule of Indian official languages. Maithili sounds sweet and soft to outsiders, who often cannot tell whether an argument is taking place. In southern districts of Mithila Angika is spoken.

The Mithila region is rich with culture and traditions. People respect their parents, believe in peaceful life and have a strong belief in God. They worship the goddess of Power Durga. Every home of Mithila has own God or Goddess named Kuldevta. They generally live in larger families. The Hindu festivals are widely celebrated : Makar Sankranti(14 January), Basant Panchami, Shivratri.Holi, Ram Navami, New Year(Mesha Sankranti on 14 April usually, Janaki Navami(Baishakh Shukla 9), Batsavitri, Madhushravani, Nagpanchami, Rakshabandhan,Krishna Janmashtami,Chauth Chandra, Durga Puja, Kojagara(Sharad Purnima), Diwali, Bhatridwitiya, Chhathi, Akshya Navami, Devotthan Ekadashi, Sama Chakeba,Kartik Purnima, Vivaha Panchami,etc. in which some are specific in Mithila e.g.Chauth Chandra when Ganesh Chaturthi in Bhadrapad is celebrated rest of India) and Indra Puja in Ashwin Krishna Paksha and So Bhatridwitiya and Sama Chakeba in Kartik Shuklapaksha-are festivals for brothers and sisters apart from Rakhabandhan as in other parts of Indian subcontinent.

A Mundan ceremony in Mithila.

A Mundan ceremony in Mithila.

The Mundan ceremony is a very popular tradition in Mithila. A child's hair is shaved for the first time, accompanied by bhoj (a party) and (sometimes extravagant) celebrations.

The Maithili marriage traditions are important to the people and unique to the region. The custom includes four days of marriage ceremonies called: Barsait,Chautrthi, Madhushravni, Kojagara, and finally Dwiragman (the first homecoming of the bride). The marriage is traditionally fixed using complex genealogical tables, called Panji among Brahmins, “Deo-Chaudhary “ Deo and Karna Kayasthas which are maintained by Panjikars, a special group of Brahmins who prevent marriages among relatives up to sixth degree in Matripaksha and seventh in Pitripakksha.

The name Mithila is also used to refer to a style of Hindu art, Madhubani art, created in the Mithila area. This art originated as ritual geometric and symbolic decorations on the walls and floors of a house, generally done by women before a marriage. The custom was not known to many outside the region. After paper was brought to the area, women began to sell their artwork and expand their subjects to popular and local Hindu deities as well as to the depiction of everyday events. Ganga Devi is perhaps the most famous Mithila artist; her work includes traditional ritual Mithila decorations, depictions of popular deities, scenes from the Ramayana, and events in her own life.

Folk stories A small film industry also exists. Of the many movies produced in Mailthili, "Sasta Jingi Mahag Senoor" and "Mamta Gabe Geet" are perhaps the best known.Off late " Sindurdan " also collected accolades. Among the documentary films that best presents the unparalleled cultural richness of Mithila are "The Cultural Heritage of Mithila" which showcases Pamaria, Pachania, Bhaant, Panaji-Prabandh, Sama-Chakeva, Salhes naach and Salhes gaatha gaayan, Kamla-Pooja etc. and "Mithila Paintings" which showcases the insights into the past, present and emerging forms of the Mithila Paintings.

Maithili (মৈথিলী Maithilī) is a language spoken in the eastern part of India, mainly in the Indian state of Bihar, and in the eastern Terai region of Nepal.^[1]

It is an offshoot of the Indo-Aryan languages, which are part of the Indo-Iranian, a branch of the Indo-European languages. Linguists consider Maithili to be an Eastern Indic language, and thus a different language from Hindi, which is Central Indic in origin. According to the 2001 census in India, 12,179,122 people speak Maithili, but various organizations have strongly argued that the actual number of Maithili speakers is much higher than the official data suggests. SIL estimates it to be more than 35 Million. In 2003, Maithili was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, which now allows the language to be used in education, government, and other official contexts. Maithili has a very rich literary and cultural heritage.

Maithili was traditionally written in the Maithili script (also known by the names Tirhuta and Mithilakshar) and Kaithi script. Nowadays, Devanagari script is most commonly used. An effort is underway to preserve the Maithili script and to develop it for use in digital media by encoding the script in the Unicode standard, for which proposals have been submitted.^[2]

The term Maithili comes from Mithila, which was an independent state in ancient times. Mithila has a very important place in Hindu mythology, since it is regarded as the birth place of Goddess Sita, the daughter of King Janak of Mithila; who eventually gets married to Lord Rama.

The most famous literary figure in Maithili is the poet Vidyapati. He is credited for raising the importance of 'people's language', i.e. Maithili, in the official work of the state by influencing the Maharaja of Darbhanga with the quality of his poetry. The state's official language used to be Sanskrit, which distanced common people from the state and its functions. The name Maithili is also one of the names of Sita, the consort of Rama.

\

The name Maithili is derived from the word Mithila, an ancient kingdom of which King Janaka was the ruler (See Ramayana). Maithili is also one of the names of Sita, the wife of King Rama and daughter of King Janaka.

It is a fact that scholars in Mithila used Sanskrit for their literary work and Maithili was the language of the common folk (Abahatta). The earliest work in Maithili appears to be Varna(n) Ratnakar by Jyotirishwar Thakur dated about 1324

Post By         :- Rajeev Deo
Email id         :- deosamaj@googlegroups.com
Email id         :- deo.society@groups.facebook.com
Website       :-  http://www.deosamaj.blogspot.com/
Website       :-  http://www.deosociety.blogspot.com/
Website       :-  http://groups.google.com/group/deosamaj

Deo jati ek jut hou...

samast deo jati udhar ke lel je bageshwari sewasamiti aur bhawani sewasamiti je deo samuday duwara kho lal gel rahe se saiti ke padadhikari lokni aapan baktigat swarth ke lel dunu samiti ke nai milaile delak tahi hetu samast deo samuday ke uwa lokni duwara rajbiraj me deo samaj ke karyalay kholi ke deo samuday ke hak hit aadhikar ke le aaga badrahal aa6i . aapne sab se aanurodh aa6 je aapne lokin bageswri aur bhawani ke shayog nai karu aur ek paisa vhi chanda nahi diyo... deo jati ke uwa duwar ek jut ke paryas nahi manlak dunu samiti ke padadhikari lokin... alp sakhiyak jati 6ai ham deo sab aur 6ot sankhiyame rahai ke karan kai ta samiti banaeb deo ke ... samast deo ke kana ke bahanahab ek ta sutra me... samast deo ji sab jagu... aakhan ke bratman paristhi thi me je aantar jatiya bibha bharahl aa6 samast deo ji sab mil ke roku ... nai te 5 se 10 brash ke bhitar deo samu day ke lop bharahal aa6... deo samaj ke mul udeshy 6ai.....

Hinduism

Apart from her beauty, a nepalese girl in the Terai region needs a fat dowry to get a suitable bridegroom. And there is no end to the mental and physical torture of those who do not or cannot meet the greed of in-laws for tilak, the Nepalese word for dowry. As in India, there are many cases where families torture or kill a bride when she fails to comply with the demand of the groom or her in-laws for a refrigerator, TV, motorcycle or Maruti car.

Terai is a flat area along the largely unregulated border with the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Accommodating 46 percent of Nepal's population, it is the first area where dowry has become a part of most marriages. One now finds dowry marriages in the capital, Kathmandu, and to a lesser extent in the hill regions.

Formerly in Nepal the main qualification of a girl's winning a good bridegroom was her skill in homemaking, including painting, embroidery, knitting and basketry. Today education of this sort, though important, does not necessarily ensure her a suitable spouse.

A parallel situation has occurred in Sri Lanka, where in the 1950s, after independence, the Tamil communities sought higher education for their sons. Many mortgaged or sold ancestral farm lands to do so, and when the boy married, tried to recoup the money spent on him. The European system of dowry, already prevalent in India, became common.

The old Hindu scriptures talk about gifts sent with a bride to her marriage, but these gifts, called sthridhan ("woman's gift"), were not a dowry in the sense that it is demanded today. The 2,500-year-old Arthashastra of Kautilya, in its summary of the contemporary law, specifically called these gifts "the property of a woman" and provided restrictions on how and when they could be spent (II.152). In Kautilya's summary of the six forms of marriage, the only bargain is for the purchase of a bride by the bridegroom, not the other way around, and this was called the asura (literally, "not divine") form of marriage. It ranked fourth among the six recognized forms, just above marriage by capture and marriage by taking advantage of a drugged maiden. The older Manu Dharma Shastras mentions eight forms of marriage, with the asura rite as sixth (III.31), in which the bridegroom gives money to the bride's family. A subsequent verse (III.51) warns against this form: "No father who knows the law must take even the smallest gratuity for his daughter; for a man who, through avarice, takes a gratuity is a seller of his offspring." Applied generally to children, this verse would appear to prohibit the taking of dowry for a son.

The Mahabharata mentions the gifts sent with a bride in the form of gold, silver, cows and horses. But nowhere in its 100,000 verses does this epic history of India recount incidents of torture inflicted upon women if they failed to bring adequate presents from their parents. While the current-day dowry is a compulsion and thus a curse for women's dignity, dowry in the past was voluntary in nature, remained under her control and insured her personal security in the marriage.

How things have changed! Now in Nepalese society dowry is a means of increased status for family who receives a fat tilak for the marriage of a son. Even the family who pays a hefty dowry to get a daughter married gets a boost in status. It is not unknown for the guardians of the boy and the girl to collude and give inflated public accounts of tilak to bolster the status of both families.

If a girl's guardian is not in a position to pay tilak in cash and kind, he will do so anyway by taking loans or by disposing of his landed property. Many parents become paupers after paying large dowries for their daughters. And if they are unable to make the agreed upon payment, the marriage may well break down.

There are still some people who neither give tilak nor accept it. This is called aadarsh bibah, "ideal marriage." But the number marrying in this way in the Terai region is rather a few, and declining elsewhere. In fact, many parents who claim to have gone in for such marriages of their sons are found to have extorted from the parents of the girls to the worst extent. Such hypocrites gave the impression they have not received any tilak. But they have taken it secretly on top of receiving many valuable items, like jewelry, TV, refrigerators, motorcycles, cars, etc.

Tilak is customary both among the rich and the poor people in the Terai region. The price of the boy, like that of a commodity or an animal, depends largely on his property, educational background and the nature of his job. In poor families with no educational background, the dowry amount might range between us$100 to $200--an average year's salary in Nepal. But the price of a boy with a secondary level education and some parental property is no less than $2,000, even if he is jobless. For an employed graduate or post-graduate, the price increases sharply. An engineer costs from $5,000 to $7,000. A medical doctor costs up to $14,000--over and above the usual car, a TV set and several other items. In our country, the dowry deal is conducted in Indian rupees rather than in Nepalese currency.

Bindu Jha, a girl from Janakpur is so disenchanted with the dowry system that in one of her articles in Rising Nepal she wrote, "I'd rather remain a spinster than marry a man who demands dowry. I regard such a person as a beggar--or, respectfully, 'a high-class beggar.' A man who looks for an educated and beautiful wife but at the same time rapaciously seeks money is not educated in the real sense. Rather such a man is wanting to marry a Maruti car, a TV set and a refrigerator--not an educated woman."

Every year a marriage fair is arranged among the Maithil Brahmins of Nepal and India at a place called Sabhagaachhi, in the Madhubani district of Bihar (India). At the fair the guardians of the girl and boy settle the marriages of their wards. Dowry serves as the primary basis for settling the marriage. Because of the open border between Nepal and India, several Nepalese brahmins also participate in this fair.

People now feel humiliated to attend the fair, as many organizations and even women's groups have protested the dowry system practiced there. In the past, Sabhagaachhi was widely revered among the Maithil Brahmins of Nepal and India. Thousands of boys with a good educational background used to participate in academic debates there. It was then that the guardians of the girls selected suitable boys.

Because of the rise in awareness in recent years, several women of the Terai region of Nepal have protested the dowry system. One, Daulat Pandey, said, "The girls will have to be united in their fight against the dowry system." "Equal legal right in the parental property can alone reduce the dowry system," says Sumitra Jha. "I oppose the dowry system because I am not capable of paying it," stated Bina Devi. Indrakala Devi observes, "Dowry system will be eliminated once the women challenge this cancer-like disease." The Bageshwari Sewa Samiti organization is working against dowry.

Dr. Banshidhar Mishra, M.P. (CPN-UML), states, "The dowry system has been a serious problem in the country, particularly in the Terai region. The girls and women should be given adequate education to get rid of this problem. Experience has shown that those who educated their daughters did not have to pay dowry." Khushilal Mandal, a senior member of Nepal Sadbhabana Party observes, "The dowry should be banished because it is an injustice against women." Parashu Narayan Chaudhary, President of Terai Development Forum and Vice-President of Rastriya Prajatantra Party states, "The dowry is spreading as a cancerous disease in various parts of the country."

In their bid to raise social awareness against dowry, certain groups in the Terai region, including producers Mithilak Byatha and Hansha Chalal Pardesh, have made documentary films in Maithili language. The pathetic life of the Maithil women along with dowry-related problems were shown in these films.

Nepal's "Social Customs and Practices Act" prohibits the dowry system. But there is not a single case in which somebody has been punished. Watch-groups should see that the law is implemented. Students, governmental, nongovernmental and international organizations should launch awareness campaigns against dowry. The participation of the women in the decision-making process at home as well as in the administration, political parties, parliament and government might enable the women to get rid of the dowry system. It is equally important that the anti-dowry campaign be related to personal ethics.

Nepal, the only Hindu country in the world, has a unique opportunity to combat the dowry problem, for the practice has not yet infiltrated the entire country. There are economic and social forces driving the increased practice of dowry that do not yield easily to any one approach. However, a beginning step is to onvince people that the harassment of brides and their families for dowry is contrary to Hindu tradition and law, and an offense to the spirit of nonviolence. It is Nepal's people who will change dowry laws, not the other way around.

Bageshwari Sewa Samiti, Chhinmasta Road, Rajbiraj, Saptari District, Nepal

deosamaj@googlegroups.com
deo.society@groups.facebook.com
 http://deosociety.blogspot.comhttp://rajeevdeo.blogspot.com/

Deo.Samaj | Google Groups

http://groups.google.com/group/deosamaj

deosamaj

deosamaj