MEANING OF PRANAM AND NAMASKAR

In Hindu Culture there is a tradition of paying regards by Namaskar (joining both hands) or by pranam or by Dandwat pranam as the situation is or how much respect you give to the person. These three are in the ascending sequence of respect. Why it is like so? Is there any scientific basis for that?

Hindu religion is the oldest religion and was/is much developed in spirituality. Our old Rishi knew by their experience of human mind, body and soul that these postures are to get some thing spiritually.

There are three extremes of our body; i.e. head, feet and hand or palm. Head is clear a centre of the brain and mind or consciousness. Palm and feet more appropriate to say fingers and toes or their nails are the pads of the mental tissues. It is proved medically that nerves ends at these nails and there is a bunch of nerves in these.

What happens when we unite our hands. We are in a submissive position and our heart is open to receipt of spiritual signals. We can exchange our emotions but we are on the gaining side more.

When we bow our head we are in more receptive position than joining the hands.  Out of three head is majorly a receiving set or receives the spiritual blessings. Where as the feet; another foremost part of the body is a emitting station. It emits spiritual blessings. The hands which in spite of being the outermost part remains in the centre of the body, does both the functions, i.e. of receiving and as well as sending.

When we join our hands our power of receiving and giving increases. A modified way is there to shake hands. But this is only for transfer of emotions not the spiritual blessings so much.

Second way is bowing and touching the feet. Here two functions are done simultaneously; when we bend we become more receiving and when we touch the feet we are joining our receiving set with the emitting set of the another one and circuit is complete. More blessings are transferred than the bowing of head and joining of hands.

The ultimate way of getting blessing is dandwat pranam; i.e. putting your head in feet. This way your ultimate receiver is joined with the emitter and you get the maximum.

This is the only reason that we touch the head of a child whom we want to bless with our hands. We pass our blessings this way to the pupil or our youngers or whom we love and want their well being.