Don't Waste Your Breath

Hindus Believe That the Number of Breaths Allotted to Them in a Lifetime Is Predetermined

- Devanshi Mody

Have you considered the far-reaching effects of this Vedic injunction? In English, ‘don't waste your breath’ is but a manner of speaking, expressing frustration. In Vedic jargon, it could be a matter of life and death. Those who believe in destiny believe that one’s time of death is fixed. However, Hindus will tap their forefinger on their forehead above the bridge of their nose and tell you that it is not quite the time of death that is fixed at birth but the number of breaths allocated to that life and that one can alter the time of death by regulated breathing. Radical contention! Yet another of those complex and mystifying sophisticated ideas present in ancient Sanskrit as well as Tamil texts, unique to Indian thought.

I stumbled upon this idea when my father passed away and those who came to pay their respects said that the number of breaths in an individual’s lifetime were “written here” (always solemnly uttered indicating the middle of the forehead) and fixed, thereby stressing the certainty of its occurrence. Having since spoken to priests and astrologers, each with their own inclinations, I quickly realised this notion is not quite so simple. Some astrologers insist they can accurately predict one’s time of death. However, a priest tells me, illness, for instance, can quicken the depletion of the number of breaths allocated a person, thereby expediting death. This is an assertion more difficult to verify; for if astrologers of my experience could predict death, nobody has hitherto told me how many breaths someone is born with…