The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hindusim vol 2
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3HO/Sikh Dharma Brotherhood<br />
Thief Castes<br />
<strong>The</strong> model for traditional Indian society<br />
was as a collection <strong>of</strong> endogamous subgroups<br />
(i.e., groups in which marriages<br />
occurred only between members <strong>of</strong> the<br />
same group) known as jatis (“birth”).<br />
<strong>The</strong>se jatis were organized (and their<br />
social status determined) by the group’s<br />
hereditary occupation, over which each<br />
group had a monopoly. Although it<br />
sounds bizarre, this specialization<br />
extended to all occupations, and there<br />
were hereditary occupational groups<br />
whose pr<strong>of</strong>ession was thievery and banditry.<br />
<strong>The</strong> most famous individual from<br />
these was Tirumangai (9th c.), by far the<br />
most picturesque <strong>of</strong> the Alvars, a group<br />
<strong>of</strong> twelve poet-saints who lived in southern<br />
India between the seventh and tenth<br />
centuries. In the nineteenth century the<br />
British composed a list <strong>of</strong> several hundred<br />
such groups, who were subject to<br />
relentless scrutiny, opposition, and in<br />
many cases resettlement.<br />
Thiruvaiyaru<br />
Temple town and sacred site (tirtha) in<br />
the Tanjore district <strong>of</strong> Tamil Nadu,<br />
about 170 miles south and west <strong>of</strong><br />
Madras. Thiruvaiyaru’s major temple is<br />
dedicated to the god Shiva, but the site<br />
is most famous for being the home <strong>of</strong><br />
the late-eighteenth-century saint and<br />
musician Tyagaraja.<br />
Thoreau, Henry David<br />
(1817–1862) American writer and<br />
philosopher, who by his own account<br />
was powerfully influenced by the Hindu<br />
religious text known as the Bhagavad<br />
Gita, particularly the text’s instruction to<br />
perform one’s duties selflessly for the<br />
good <strong>of</strong> society, without any thought <strong>of</strong><br />
personal reward. Thoreau refers to this<br />
text in both Walden and A Week on the<br />
Concord and Merrimack Rivers, and in<br />
letters to his friends, Thoreau talks<br />
about his desire to practice yoga.<br />
Three Debts<br />
According to tradition, repayment <strong>of</strong><br />
three “debts” was incumbent on all<br />
“twice-born” men, that is, men born<br />
into one <strong>of</strong> the three “twice-born”<br />
groups in Indian society—brahmin,<br />
kshatriya, or vaishya—who had undergone<br />
the adolescent religious initiation<br />
known as the second birth. <strong>The</strong> first <strong>of</strong><br />
these debts was to the gods and was<br />
repaid by <strong>of</strong>fering sacrifices. <strong>The</strong> second<br />
debt was to the sages and was satisfied<br />
by studying the Vedas, the oldest and<br />
most authoritative religious texts. <strong>The</strong><br />
final debt was to the ancestors (pitrs)<br />
and was satisfied by procreating a son,<br />
to ensure that the ancestral rites would<br />
be carried out without interruption.<br />
3HO/Sikh Dharma Brotherhood<br />
Modern religious organization founded<br />
by Yogi Bhajan; the movement’s two<br />
names reflect differing emphases in the<br />
phases in Yogi Bhajan’s teaching. His initial<br />
teachings were the traditional disciplines<br />
<strong>of</strong> hatha yoga and kundalini<br />
yoga, with his followers organized into a<br />
group known as the Happy, Healthy,<br />
Holy Organization (3HO). Hatha yoga is a<br />
system <strong>of</strong> religious discipline (yoga)<br />
based on a series <strong>of</strong> bodily postures<br />
known as asanas; this practice is widely<br />
believed to provide various physical<br />
benefits, including increased bodily<br />
flexibility and the ability to heal chronic<br />
ailments. Kundalini yoga is the religious<br />
discipline whose primary focus is awakening<br />
the kundalini, the latent spiritual<br />
force that exists in every person in the<br />
subtle body. <strong>The</strong> kundalini is awakened<br />
through a combination <strong>of</strong> yoga practice<br />
and ritual action and is believed to bring<br />
further spiritual capacities and final liberation<br />
(moksha) <strong>of</strong> the soul.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se two disciplines remain an<br />
important part <strong>of</strong> Yogi Bhajan’s teachings,<br />
for he claims to be a master <strong>of</strong><br />
tantra, a secret, ritually based religious<br />
practice. In the 1970s his teaching<br />
widened to include traditional Sikh<br />
teachings and symbols. <strong>The</strong> most<br />
prominent <strong>of</strong> these symbols are the “five<br />
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