The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hindusim vol 2

Rawal
570
February), celebrated as the birthday of
the medieval bhakti poet-saint Ravidas,
born near Benares. Ravidas’s birth into
the untouchable caste of leather workers
(chamar) afforded him a very low
social status. His poetry is set in a personal
voice and contrasts this lowly status
with the honor and renown he
gained through his devotion to God. In
modern times many members of the
depressed classes see Ravidas as a
model, and his birthday is celebrated
with great fervor.
Rawal
Title given to the head priest (pujari) at
the temple of Badrinath in the
Himalayas. The Rawal is invariably a
Nambudiri brahmin, who must remain
unmarried to retain his position.
In Hindu belief, Badrinath is one of
the four dhams (“divine abodes”)
connected with the philosopher
Shankaracharya. Seeking to combat the
spread of Buddhism and revitalize
Hindu religion, Shankaracharya reportedly
chose one Hindu sacred center in
each corner of the subcontinent, and at
each established a Dashanami Sanyasi
monastic center (math) to train learned
monks. Badrinath is associated with
the Jyotir Math in the Himalayan
town of Joshimath, forty miles south,
which is also the place where the deity
Badrinath is symbolically transported
for the winter.
According to Badrinath temple
records, for several hundred years the
position of head priest was filled by
Dandi Sanyasis, who were also
Nambudiri brahmins, the same caste
into which Shankaracharya is supposed
to have been born. When the last of
these died without a successor in 1776,
the local king who served as the protector
of the shrine invited a non-ascetic
Nambudiri brahmin to serve as the temple’s
priest. This priest was given the title
rawal (from the word raja, “deputy”),
and his extended family has run the
shrine since then. The rawal was the
only person allowed to touch the image
of Badrinath, and was responsible for
performing worship during the six
months that the temple is open.
Because of these duties, the rawal was
required to remain a bachelor, lest the
ritual impurity arising from the birth of
a child (sutakashaucha) render him
unable to attend to his duties. Until the
Badrinath Temple Act of 1939 established
a temple board as the ultimate
authority, the rawals had sole rights to
the offerings given at the shrine.
Rawat
A particular subgroup of the warrior
princes known as the Rajputs; the
Rawats’ major area of influence was in
southwestern Uttar Pradesh state.
Reciprocal Dependence
In Indian logic, one of the fallacies to
be avoided in constructing an argument.
Reciprocal dependence occurs
when two things each stand as cause
and effect to the other—when A depends
on B, and B in turn depends on A. This
is seen as an extended case of selfresidence,
and equally objectionable.
Reconversion
General name for the rites by which
people who have converted to other religious
traditions are accepted back as
Hindus. See shuddhi.
Reflectionism
Theory used in later schools of Advaita
Vedanta to explain how one single primal
ignorance could afflict multiple
ignorant selves. Reflectionism is rooted
in the idea of an image appearing in a
mirror; different from the original, it is
nonetheless based on it. In the same
way, according to this explanation, the
ignorance affecting each individual is
simply a reflection of a primal ignorance.
For further information see Karl
H. Potter, Presuppositions of India’s
Philosophies, 1972.