Why do rituals at all?

A rite gives shape to feelings that are hard to put into words — gratitude for a new child, hope at a new home, grief at a loss. It marks time: the day, the season, the stages of life. It also binds a family together, since the same words and gestures are passed down through generations.

Tradition speaks of rites as offerings that keep a circle of give-and-take with the gods, the sages, the ancestors, other people and nature. You may see them as devotion, as discipline or as cultural memory — all three are honest ways to begin.

Karmakāṇḍa — the ritual way · Ask a Jyotishi your own question