Have you heard the old fable of the priests and the cat?
There was this guru whose hermitage had a pet cat in it. Once, the guru was
praying / performing a sacrifice when the cat, chasing a mouse, ran into and
upset his sacrificial vessels, flowers etc.
So the guru ordered his disciples to tie the cat up whenever he was praying /
sacrificing etc.
Sometime later the guru passed away - but his disciples continued to tie the
cat up whenever they were praying.
The cat died, and the disciples tied up its kitten that stayed on ..
Pretty soon the original disciples died but their students spread out far and
wide to found their own hermitages, become priests etc etc. And every one of
them dictated that whenever a ritual was to be performed, a cat had to be
bought in and tied up .. even if there was no cat around to begin with.
srs
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lahar
Appaiah
Sent: Tuesday, 9 June 2009 4:51 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [silk] Indian foodies
I've always believed that most traditions are rooted either in logic, or in
what was most convenient to the people who set the traditions at that time
(and which would, presumably, have been logical to those people). Obviously,
over time, they've gained the added halo of being an integral part of
'culture' (apart from being irrelevant to the present day and age), and
people tend to follow them blindly, because that was what their parents
followed. I suspect that if you dig deep enough, you can find a logical
explanation for just about anything that falls within the realm of
'tradition'.
On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 4:02 PM, Pranesh Prakash <[email protected]>wrote:
> Why must we subject all traditions to logic? That results, most
> irritatingly, in 'modern traditionalists' (to coin a phrase) offering
> faux-scientific explanations for their practices. I'd rather follow
> logic-less traditions than be subject to cargo cult science.
>
>
