Hindu Practices and Holy Days

How do Hindus worship?

Most Hindu worship takes the form of puja, in which offerings are placed before, or applied to, a sacred image of a deity. The scholar Nancy Auer Falk writes that puja first appears in texts composed around 600 to 400 BCE and that it now predominates in Hindu practice.¹

Falk lists sixteen traditional acts of service. The worshiper invites the deity, offers a seat, washes its feet, bathes and dresses the image, and offers perfume, flowers, incense, a lamp, and food. The worshiper then bows and takes leave of the deity.¹ In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that even the simplest gift is welcome: Whoever with devotion offers me leaf, flower, fruit, water, that, presented with devotion, I accept from him whose self is pure. (Bhagavad Gita 9.26)²

ISKCON's educational site, a Gaudiya Vaishnava source, notes that Hinduism places strong emphasis on home worship, and both it and Falk report that most Hindus keep a home shrine.³⁴¹ Home puja is often a scaled-down form of temple worship, often led by the women of the household early in the morning.⁴ Dancing with Siva, a catechism that teaches a monistic form of Shaiva Siddhanta,⁵ holds that every Shaiva home centers on its shrine, with worship before dawn, in the evening, and before meals.⁶⁵⁷

What happens in a Hindu temple?

In a temple, priests serve the deity as a royal resident, while worshipers come to make offerings and requests and to receive the deity's grace.¹⁸ Falk writes that the daily temple puja follows the home pattern on a larger scale and is repeated three to six times a day. The deity is awakened in the morning, and a movable image may be carried in procession around the temple grounds.¹ The priests, usually brahmans, members of the priestly class, act for everyone; daily worship is not a congregational service.¹⁹

Traditions differ in how they understand the image. In the Vaishnava Pancharatra tradition, G. R. Welbon writes, a properly consecrated image becomes a form in which the Lord is fully present, worthy of worship.¹⁰ In temples of Shiva, Falk notes, the central image is always the linga, a form that is not shaped like a person.¹ Dancing with Siva teaches that in worshiping the linga, devotees contemplate Shiva as Parashiva, the Absolute, of which its simple shape speaks in silence. The scholar Hugh Urban writes that in Shaiva practice Shiva is held to be present in the linga itself, not only symbolized by it.¹¹¹²

What is darshan?

Darshan is the auspicious seeing of a deity, and for many Hindus it is central to worship. The scholar Paul Courtright writes that when an image is honored and adorned, the deity makes itself available to be seen. The deity also sees the worshipers and extends grace to them, above all in prasada, food that has been offered to the deity and is returned to the worshiper.⁸

How do Hindus pray and meditate?

Hindus pray in set words and in their own, and many also repeat mantras, sing, and meditate. ISKCON's site describes japa, the quiet repetition of a mantra such as the Hare Krishna mantra, often on a string of 108 beads: tulsi wood for Vaishnavas, rudraksha seeds for Shaivas. It adds that brahmans traditionally recite the Gayatri mantra at dawn, noon, and dusk.¹³ Dancing with Siva teaches japa of the Shaiva mantra Namah Shivaya, spoken aloud or repeated in the mind.¹⁴

ISKCON's site describes two forms of devotional singing: bhajan, hymns sung in small groups or by a whole congregation, and kirtan, mantras repeated to music, both central to the devotional movements.¹³ For meditation, Hiltebeitel calls the eight limbs of classical yoga, from restraint and posture to breath control and deep concentration, the most important Hindu formulation of a step-by-step path to liberation.⁹

What are the rites of passage?

Hindu rites of passage are called samskaras, rites that consecrate and purify a person at each stage of life. The scholar Patrick Olivelle writes that the sources disagree on their number: some give twelve, some as many as forty, and the medieval handbooks give sixteen.¹⁵ Dancing with Siva lists the essential rites as conception, the three-month blessing, hair-parting, birth, naming, head-shaving, first feeding, ear-piercing, first learning, puberty, marriage, elders' vows, and last rites.¹⁶

The upanayana, or Vedic initiation, is counted as a second birth. The boy receives the sacred thread, and the teacher gives him the Savitri verse of the Rig Veda, the sacred Gayatri mantra.¹⁵⁸ Griffith translates its opening: May we attain that excellent glory of Savitar the God (Rig Veda 3.62.10)¹⁷.

Initiation shows how practice has changed. The classical texts limited it to boys of the first three social classes, called the twice-born, though Olivelle notes some evidence that girls once studied the Veda as well.¹⁵ He writes that marriage and the funeral are the only samskaras regularly practiced today, and that initiation, where it survives, has become largely a brahman custom.¹⁵ Dancing with Siva, for its part, still teaches the childhood rites as essential.¹⁶ In Maharashtra, Eleanor Zelliot and Anne Feldhaus describe a program in Pune that trains women as Vedic ritual priests.¹⁸

The wedding varies by region, but Olivelle names a common core. Offerings are made into a sacred fire, the groom takes the bride's hand, and he leads her around the fire. The couple then take seven steps together, which most authorities treat as the essential rite of marriage.¹⁵

Cremation has been the usual practice since the earliest period of Indian history, and from the late Vedic period it came to be regarded as a person's last sacrifice. For twelve days, as is usual today, the family makes offerings of food and water. A final rite with balls of rice then joins the dead person to the ancestors.¹⁵ Deutsch and Siegel write that the Gita is often read or whispered to the dying.¹⁹ In it, Krishna teaches: And he who leaves this body and departs (from this world) remembering me in (his) last moments, comes into my essence. (Bhagavad Gita 8.5)²

Do Hindus follow food rules?

In a Pew Research Center survey of Indian adults, published in 2021, 44 percent of Hindus said they are vegetarian, and another 33 percent said they abstain from eating certain meats.²⁰ Pew notes that Hindu texts often praise vegetarianism and that cows are traditionally seen as sacred: 72 percent of Hindus said a person who eats beef cannot be Hindu.²¹

Each tradition explains its own practice. ISKCON's site writes that Vaishnava teaching sorts all foods by the three qualities of nature and usually shuns meat as belonging to darkness, and that food offered to God, called prasada, purifies body, mind, and spirit.²² Dancing with Siva teaches vegetarianism as part of noninjury, living with the least possible harm to other beings.²³

In the worship of fierce forms of the Goddess, such as Kali and Durga, animal offerings were once standard, and sometimes still are, scholars report. Falk writes that the practice has fallen out of favor among Hindus today, and in the Navaratri rites of most regions vegetable substitutes now take its place.¹²⁴²⁵

Fasting is common too. Pew found that 79 percent of Hindus in India fast.²¹ ISKCON's site notes that feasts are often preceded by fasting, and that on Ekadashi, the eleventh lunar day, many fast in part by avoiding grains and beans.²²²⁶ Courtright writes that vows called vratas, which often include fasting, are more commonly kept by women and are often directed to goddesses.⁸

Why do Hindus go on pilgrimage?

Hindus go on pilgrimage to see and honor the deity of a holy place, to gain merit, and to seek healing or blessing.⁸ The scholar William Sax writes that the Sanskrit word for a pilgrimage place, tirtha, means a crossing place or ford, and that Hindu pilgrimage always involves bathing.²⁷

Sax writes that Kashi, or Banaras, has long been regarded as Shiva's city, and that many believe those who die there gain moksha, liberation from rebirth. Another widely known circuit is the four abodes at the corners of India: Badrinath, Jagannath at Puri, Rameshvaram, and Dvaraka. Many Hindus hold that the philosopher Shankara founded them; Sax writes that no reliable historical evidence confirms it.²⁷⁸

The largest gathering is the Kumbh Mela, which UNESCO, inscribing it as intangible cultural heritage in 2017, describes as the largest peaceful gathering of pilgrims on earth, held every four years, in rotation, at Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain, and Nasik. Devotees believe, UNESCO writes, that bathing in the Ganges frees them from sins and from the cycle of birth and death.²⁸

What are the main festivals?

Hindu festivals vary by region, caste, and family, so no single list fits everyone. The scholar Marie-Louise Reiniche writes that even a festival kept across India varies locally in its date and its stories.²⁶ Some of the most widely kept:

Festival	When	What it marks
Diwali, or Dipavali	A new moon in autumn, in October or November	Rows of lamps and the worship of Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity29
Navaratri, then Dussehra or Vijayadashami	Nine nights in autumn, with a smaller spring Navaratri in some regions	The Goddess Durga's victory over the buffalo demon; also Rama's victory over Ravana242630
Holi	A full moon in early spring, mainly in North India	The burning of the demon Holika and play with colored water and powder318
Mahashivaratri	The fourteenth night of a dark fortnight, in February or March	The great night of Shiva268
Krishna Janmashtami	The eighth day of a dark fortnight, in August or September	Krishna's birth2630
Makar Sankranti; Pongal in Tamil Nadu	Mid-January, set by the sun	The sun's turn northward; in Tamil Nadu, the cooking of the new rice and worship of the sun and cattle26

Diwali shows how one festival carries many meanings. Reiniche ties its lamps and stories to Lakshmi, to the demon king Bali, and to Krishna's victory over the demon Naraka.²⁹ ISKCON's site writes that its central theme is Rama's return to his capital, Ayodhya, while South India celebrates the marriage of Lakshmi and Vishnu and Bengal honors the goddess Kali.³²

Navaratri also takes many forms. In Bengal, families and communities build large images of the Goddess and immerse them in water at the end, while in Tamil Nadu the ninth night honors Sarasvati, goddess of learning.²⁴¹

How are the dates of festivals set?

Most Hindu festivals follow a lunisolar calendar, so their dates move against the Western calendar. An extra month is added about once every three years to make up the shortfall against the solar year.³³ Each month has a bright half, when the moon waxes, and a dark half, when it wanes. Reiniche notes that most celebrations fall in the bright half, so the few dark-half festivals, chief among them those for Shiva and Krishna and Diwali, take on special significance.²⁶

Regions count months differently. In North India the month generally begins with the full moon, and in South India with the new moon, so a festival can fall in a different named month in each.³³ Reiniche adds that each region has several almanacs, called panchangas, based on different textual traditions, so a holiday may fall on different dates in different places.²⁶ This page gives no future dates. The Branches page explains the traditions, the Christianity vs Hinduism comparison sets Hindu practice beside Christian worship, and the Resources page lists the book series.