In Chapter 6 of The Goddess Lives in Upstate New York, titled A Fine Balance: The Give and Take of Religious Discipline, a, nonbrahman Sri Lankan Tamil known as Aiya voices an anomalous caution for the people of Rush Temple to wear their hair back. Aiya’s reasoning for this is that according to the Tamil tradition, women are only allowed to let their hair loose on the day she becomes a widow and that he doesn’t want loose hair falling into the Nyayyavedyams (offerings to the deities), the flower baskets or on the deity. Aiya states that if one’s hair were to fall in there, it would be considered ucistam, or polluted, and would not be able to be used afterwards. For this reason, Aiya expresses to the temple attendees to “not think that we are being unduly harsh on you. It’s for practical reasons.” (Dempsey, 138). Aside from the fact that the first rule is directly targeted at women, these rules would overall affect women more than men since, generally speaking, women are much more likely to have longer hair than men. This would greatly affect some first-time female visitors in that they would feel dismayed with this rule as they would prefer to
In Chapter 6 of The Goddess Lives in Upstate New York, titled A Fine Balance: The Give and Take of Religious Discipline, a, nonbrahman Sri Lankan Tamil known as Aiya voices an anomalous caution for the people of Rush Temple to wear their hair back. Aiya’s reasoning for this is that according to the Tamil tradition, women are only allowed to let their hair loose on the day she becomes a widow and that he doesn’t want loose hair falling into the Nyayyavedyams (offerings to the deities), the flower baskets or on the deity. Aiya states that if one’s hair were to fall in there, it would be considered ucistam, or polluted, and would not be able to be used afterwards. For this reason, Aiya expresses to the temple attendees to “not think that we are being unduly harsh on you. It’s for practical reasons.” (Dempsey, 138). Aside from the fact that the first rule is directly targeted at women, these rules would overall affect women more than men since, generally speaking, women are much more likely to have longer hair than men. This would greatly affect some first-time female visitors in that they would feel dismayed with this rule as they would prefer to