Rituals for our dead ancestors - why should we do that?

When my dad passed away four years ago, I saw various rituals that were performed continuously for some days. Those rituals are there in our Hindu system and are being followed generations after generations. But when it was actually performed for my dad, that's when I had a few questions in my mind. (since I saw everything very closely those days).

Lets touch some base on why we should do these in the said ways immediately after someone passes away. Once a person leaves this world, his/her body is burned according to Hindu traditions. Only the subtle body (soul) exists. Since the gross body has departed, this subtle body is not capable of any enjoyments/sufferings. Those rituals which we perform, gives this subtle body a shape (hands, legs, limbs, head etc - like how a baby in the womb develops day by day) each day. And at the end of  all the rituals, the subtle body gets full shape and goes to pithru lokha. (A different world where our dead ancestors live. Please refer to my other post : Our gods and devas are aliens"?)

Some other day I was seeing the movie "Periyar" (acted by Sathyaraj),  Periyar is an athiest and in one scene he will see somebody performing death rituals for their ancestors by doing Tharpan. By seeing this Periyar will ask "What is he doing?" and he will be told, "He is offering his prayers to his dead father!!" Then Periyar will go to a nearby river and take the water and pour it in the land. People will come to him and ask "What are you doing?". He will say "I am trying to send the water from here to River Ganges!!!" People will laugh and say "Are you crazy! How will that be possible?" For this Periyar will reply, "If this is not possible, how come those offerings given by him will ever reach his dead ancestor. Is that not crazy? You people still believe in these superstitions?"

When I saw that movie for the first time, this question went deeply in my mind. Yes, indeed that is a good question but really those rituals are not superstitions. There should be some reason behind it and I started  to collect some information about that. I then got the beautiful explanation given by Maha Periyava (Sankaracharya). Here is that explanation.....

When we do Tharpan to our ancestors, we do it with sesame seeds, water, raw banana, rice etc. But where do they actually go? It is hard to believe that our ancestors come in person and receives them. And since there is no proof, it is ignored as a superstition. Think it this way..... When we send Indian currency to USA, it will be converted to US dollars before actually sent to USA. Why? Because Indian currency cannot be used in USA. So we go to a "Medium" called Exchange and transfer our INR to USD and then only can send it. Likewise, When we do rituals in a described way, the "Mediums" called "Pithru devathas" will transfer those offerings what we send in a way it can be received by the pithrus. For example, if the ancestor is born as a cow, he will get those offerings in the form of hay."

By Jim Champion (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html),
 CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Excellent clarification. Isn't it? Now read the same question raised by Periyar. I think no one can give a great fitting reply than this for that question. That "Medium" or "Exchange" here is the hidden science behind our rituals to our ancestors.

The water from the River will not reach Ganges by simply pouring it from that place, Agreed. But it will surely reach if we store it in a container, travel to Ganges and pour the water in the Holy River... isn't it?  Rituals are like that. They may seem superstitious at the outset, but if you indulge in analyzing the reasons behind them, you will certainly get valid reasons. All that is needed is little patience and true effort to know them, That's it.

For your further reference :


http://www.kamakoti.org/tamil/part1kural51.htm

http://www.kamakoti.org/tamil/part1kural83.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarpana