Deepavali Is Not a Day for Cemetery Worship: What Does Hindu Dharma Teach?
Every Deepavali, some Hindu families in Singapore go to the cemetery. They pray at the graves of their parents or grandparents, and many even bring cooked food to offer to the departed. The love behind this is real, no doubt. But love for our ancestors must follow dharma, and this practice does not. This raises an important question: Is visiting a cemetery and offering food to the dead on Deepavali a practice prescribed by Hindu scriptures? The short answer is that it has no basis in the Hindu scriptures and, therefore, conflicts with their rules on purity. It looks far more like the customs of other cultures than anything taught in our own. Before we get into the depth of the issue, we must first discriminate between " remembering our departed loved ones " and " performing religious rites in accordance with Dharma ". The two, though seemingly aligned, cannot be conflated: a custom does not become a sastric observance merely because it is practised by some members...
