SOOTAK (Sutak)
Sootak has its root in Sanskrit word ‘sootkam’ which means: uncleanliness (state of woman after giving birth to a child*), impurity, pollution. {*Sooti means to give birth; soot=born}.
According to Hinduism, some persons, in some situations, become polluted. For example, after the birth of a child, the women become polluted. This pollution stays for 11 days in a Brahmin woman, for 13 days in a Kashatriya woman, for 17 days in a Vaishya woman, and, for 30 days in a Shudara woman. Similarly, all the women are polluted during the days of menstruation as well. In fundamentalist Hindu culture all the untouchables are polluted beings; hence those people who touch an untouchable person too become polluted. There are hundred types of pollutions in Hinduism.
Sikhism rejects all these notions. In Sikhism, wickedness, greed, lust, dishonesty and ill-will are pollution and their pollution can be removed through meditation and by truthful living.
Also see: Ablution, Pollution.
(Dr Harjinder Singh Dilgeer)