Unveiling the Relationship between Cultural Practices & Well-Being among Brahmin Students

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The present paper reports a study entitled ‘Cultural Practices and Well-being among Tamil Brahmin Students’. India has a rich culture and heritage. That too the Vedic culture of India is something note worthy. The aims of the research include unfolding the rich cultural heritage of Vedic Brahmins belonging to Tamil community and to see how this rich tradition influences their general well-being and intelligence. Culture represents the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving (Hofstede,1997). Culture is the backbone of every society. Culture has either a direct or indirect influence on all the activities of the society. It ranges from day to day activities to deeper traits. The practices, rituals and even habits of the society are largely dependent upon the culture. The subjects of the study, Tamil Brahmins stay in separate settlements called AGRAHARAMS and follow a typical lifestyle. Some of them still follow a socially secluded life, restricting themselves within the walls of their cultural practices. The sample consists of 90 subjects, belonging to Tamil Brahmin community and it is divided into three groups 1) 30 people with regular practices 2) 30 people with occasional practices and 3) 30 people with no practice at all. The following tools are used to collect the data 1) cultural practices checklist (prepared by the researchers) 2) PGI General Wellbeing Measure by R.Anitha and P. Sareena. The parametric statistics was applied to analyze the obtained data. Well-being is generally considered as a subjective feeling of contentment, happiness, and satisfaction with life’s experiences. The results show that there is a significant correlation between the cultural practices existing among Tamil Brahmins and their well-being. The study throws light upon the influence of various cultural practices on well-being. It also helps to know how much cultural practices decide the wellbeing of persons living in the particular society. The study reminds us of our rich cultural practices and how the learning of Vedas could be embedded into the present education system to improve the general well-being of the students. The paper thus presents not just psychological perspectives, but anthropological and sociological factors as well.