3 Or 13 ?

Recently I had a visit to one of the oldest and famous temple located in outskirts of Hyderabad. It so happened that we just got delayed few minutes and the temple was about to close for lunch, and so we hurriedly rushed into the main temple. Before I said a word to the priest, he asked us if we three together came to the temple and when I answered yes, the immediate response from him is that we should always avoid travelling by three persons together. And when I asked him why, he said that Number 3 is considered as an inauspicious evil number and we should avoid this number. For some reason, I was completely puzzled out as what made him say that. May be because, I being an ardent lover of mathematics, I always loved the number 3 more than any other number and consider it as my lucky one. Then all of a sudden a philosopher born into me  and engaged my mind with full of unanswered questions.  I started thinking about all these and asked my friend if these are indeed “superstitions” or “tested and tried” facts? For which he was also not sure. Well, not only this incident, but what surpasses me is that even in this era of  modern days people are blindly believing in “superstitions” like we should start our day by seeing a good face, before doing any work check for the proper time otherwise the work would be futile etc. Westerners say that the number 13 is inauspicious for them; easterners say that number 3 is inauspicious for them. We all are human beings whom god has created. Just because we differ in religion, do we also differ in laws of religion and if end result of every religion is to manifest the god, why do we consider one as right and other as wrong?

The question that pesters me the most is, "How we as society and individuals have become so intolerant for religion and other castes?" There are no religious books which emphasize on the need for the divisions of the religions and based on that hatred for the other castes / religions. I am no big philosopher but. Lord Krishna had said in the Holy Bhagavad Gita that the person is not of a particular caste by birth, but by his virtue, by his Karma i.e., his deeds. If the person is religious, pious and maintains his sanctity in the worst of situations, the person is liable to be called a Brahman. Not just because he was born in a Brahman family. Similarly, for the other castes. Lord Krishna had also said, in Kaluga there would be no divisions as per castes, because essentially everyone would be doing little bit of what others are supposed to do. So, there cannot be divisions based on duties and religious activities. However, sad as it is, we are conveniently forgetting what Lord Krishna had said and only remember one thing "That the religion has to be sustained”. There are generally no concrete justifications for carrying out such indifferent acts. But from time to time it has been carried out against certain castes or other religions of the society. The onus of carrying out such acts is not specific to a particular religion, but it has become a general phenomenon in our country.


That day I had a small misunderstanding between me and the pious priest. When I asked him to explain as why the number 3 is considered “not so good”, his answer was not convincing to me...later I felt that we are easily instigated by small issues that have absolutely no concern to our daily routine. And, we fight with such intensity and such anger as if the hatred was there for years. How can we change the situation? What are the issues we as individuals in particular and society in general should concentrate on? How can we be more tolerant? Who is our real enemy "The religion or the inability to understand it?” Atleast for me, I feel it is the inability to understand and interpret the true meaning for it, which is causing the lack of harmony between men to men.