Adi AmmAvAsyA

[Guest guest]

Dear BhAgavathAs,

 

As many of you may know, Solar eclipse will be seen in

India on the coming Aug 11 (next Wednesday). Also AmmavAsya

happens to coincide with that day. However both the SriRanga VAkya

PanchAngam

and the Sri Nrisimha Priya magazine say that the AmmAvAsya tharpanam has

to be done only on the following day (Thursday) due to the presence of solar

eclipse on Wednesday.

 

AdiyEn's question is that if we are not going to be seeing solar eclipse

here in the USA, can we perform the AmmAvAsya tharpanam on Aug 11,

Wednesday?

 

AdiyEn

Lakshmi Narasimhan

[Guest guest]

Dear Bhagavatas

I am forwarding my response to the query by Sri Lakshminarasimhan on the

subject. Hope this will be useful for other members also.

Dasoham

Anbil Ramaswamy

Ramanbil

Full-name: Ramanbil

Sat, 7 Aug 1999 23:10:22 EDT

Re: Adi AmmAvAsyA

lakshmi.srinivasan

Dear Sri Lakshminarasimhan

You have observed -

Solar eclipse will be seen in

India on the coming Aug 11 (next Wednesday). Also AmmavAsya

happens to coincide with that day.

 

Solar eclipse will always be on amAvAsya and Lunar eclipse on Pournami.

 

Your query is -

AdiyEn's question is that if we are not going to be seeing solar eclipse

here in the USA, can we perform the AmmAvAsya tharpanam on Aug 11,

Wednesday?

 

I will try to answer your query with reference to what is stated in the

Annexure to the Ahnika Grantham of Prakritam H.H. Azhagiyasinghar.

 

He quotes Brahmavaivartha Vachanam as per Smriti RatnAkaram etc which goes

thus-

"chandra sooryOparAge tu yAvat darsana gOcharah"

- which means the "punyakAlam" extends from the time the start of the eclipse

is 'sighted' to the time the end is 'sighted'.

 

In other words, if we are not going to be seeing solar eclipse here in the

USA, the "punyakAlam' requiring the grahana tharpaNam does not arise.

ADi amAvAsya tharpanam, however, will have to be performed on the day it

occurs.

 

In cases where the 'amAvAsya' and the 'sighting' of the grahaNam as

aforesaid, occur together, H.H. Azhagiyasinghar has held that

grahaNatharpanam has to be done as it is 'aniyatham' and the amAvAsya

tharpanam need not be done as it is 'niyatham'- also because in both the

cases the same pitrrudevatAs are 'uddhesyam'-

"aniyathasya baleeyatvAt". In other words, the "aniyatham" (that which occurs

comparatively rarely) gets precedence over the "niyatham" (that which occurs

comparatively regularly). Vide Page 26 and 27 ibid.

In doing grahaNa tharpaNam in such cases, one should take bath at the start

of the eclipse, go ahead with dAnam, hOmam, archanai, mantrajapam etc., and

finally tharpanam. This is only for those who observe the order as ordained.

 

In practice, however, we may do snAnam at the start and perform tharpanam at

the time of moksham and try to do dAnam, archanai and mantrajapam etc. in

between to the extent possible.

 

This is only my surmise from a reading of the directions in the Ahnika

grantham. Learned pundits may be able to clarify better.

 

Dasoham

Anbil Ramaswamy