to be sacrificed and their deaths they
were treated as virtual divinities, since
they were considered to have been
consecrated to the goddess. For fur-
ther information see E. A. Gait, A
History of Assam, 1963. See also pitha.
Humors, Bodily
See tridosha.
Hundi
In earlier times, the name for a letter
of credit issued from a mercantile
house. By the early 1800s, these letters
functioned as a virtual currency, since
in some cases they would pass
through twenty or thirty transactions
before being returned for payment.
Hundis are significant because they
allowed families to transact business
over large areas without having to
actually carry large sums of money
with them and thus helped to foster
long distance trade.
In modern times, this is also the
most common term for a temple
collection box, where visitors deposit
their offerings.
Hygiene
Orthoprax Hindus (that is, Hindus who
stress correct religious practice) lay
great stress on cleanliness of their bod-
ies and their immediate environment.
Although to the outside eye this scrupu-
lous attention would seem to indicate a
concern for hygiene, these actions are
performed primarily to protect and
retain religious purity.
In many cases, concerns for hygiene
and purity overlap, as in the pervasive
practice of bathing (snana) and the
regulations concerning bodily cleanli-
ness. Both of these simultaneously
remove dirt and impurity (ashaucha),
but in other cases these concerns
clearly diverge.
One example of this divergence is
the way that household refuse is often
simply put out in the street—a prac-
tice that keeps the home pure and
clean, but which fosters unhygienic
conditions directly outside the home.
Another example of this disjunction
can be seen in the traditional use of
cow dungas a purifying substance, or
the way that the Ganges River is
always considered pure, even in its
lower reaches where it is full of sewage
and industrial effluents. These exam-
ples clearly show that purity and
hygiene are very different concepts
and that, from a religious perspective,
purity is by far the more important of
the two.Hypergamous Marriage
A marriage in which the wife comes
from a group with lower social status
than the husband. Although the ideal
Hindu marriage is between a man and
woman of equal social status, hyperga-
mous marriage was admitted as a possi-
bility in the dharma literature, although
it was not encouraged. In most cases, it
was specified that a man’s first wife
should be of equal social status, but that
he was then permitted to marry women
of lower status.
In modern India, where the predom-
inant form of marriage is still arranged
marriage, most marriages are still
between men and women of equal sta-
tus. However, a hypergamous marriage
is likely to generate less opposition than
a hypogamous marriage, where a
woman marries a man from a lower sta-
tus group. In the dharma literature,
hypergamous marriage was known as
anuloma, “with the hair” (i.e., in the nat-
ural direction).Hypogamous Marriage
A marriage in which the wife comes
from a group with higher social status
than the husband. Such marriages were
strictly forbidden in the dharma litera-
ture, and this prohibition illustrates the
role of womenin determining a group’s
social status.Hypogamous Marriage