From violet to red, From white to black, Hinduism attaches a spiritual meaning to almost every spectral color. But one color that is really associated with Hinduism is the orange or saffron color. Whether it is the orange flag adorning most temples in India or the bright orange color of fire in the Yagyas, orange color has a special significance in Hinduism.
Even our monks or sanyasis wear orange robes because it represents fire and therefore purity; impurities are burned in the fire. But this wasn’t always the case. Earlier monks used to wear clothes, colored with the soil (red earth) found near the anthills which almost resemble the orange color.
Because there was a tradition in India of going and meditating near anthills and by coloring your robes with that particular soil is to remind yourself that your physical self is just an outcrop of the land that you walk upon. Another aspect of wearing clothes that are washed in the soil is because it is the best way to make the body stable is to be connected to the Earth.
Especially for one who is focused on something beyond the body, he does not want his body to come in the way. So this is like covering yourself by Earth because your clothing has the quality of the Earth. It connects you in so many ways and you are always conscious that your body is a part of this Earth. Even when death comes, you do not have a great amount of struggle because you know that the body was always a part of this Earth.
https://www.himalayanacademy.com/monastery/meet-the-monks
https://www.exotravel.com/blog/en/buddhist-monk/
Interesting !!!
ReplyDeleteWell researched
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