Guest guest Posted December 15, 2003 Report Share Posted December 15, 2003 jay gurudev!!! what i need to recite about present 'sthan' if u an performing guru pujan aur sadhana here in US. it can;t be 'jammu dipe, bharat khande' if i am not mistaken. regards Mithilesh New Photos - easier uploading and sharing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 15, 2003 Report Share Posted December 15, 2003 I came across this sometime ago, hope this is of help. Any other suggestions? ------------------- Sankalpam for America Ramanbil Thu Aug 12 1999 - 08:24:57 PDT Next message: a c: "my prapatti" Previous message: Venkat Iyengar S.: "Thiruvadipooram" Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] Dear Bhagavatas I am forwarding my reply to a query raised by Sri Balaji Seshadri on the subject of Sankalpam to be done in USA. Hope this will be useful for other members of the list. If there is any variation, I would like to hear from other scholars in the group. Dasoham Anbil Ramaswamy Dear friend I give below excerpts from Chapter 21 of my book "Hinduism Rediscovered" dealing with the Sankalpam. The exact names of Thithi, VAra, Nakshatra etc can be obtained from any almanac of the year (Panchangam) Hope this helps. Dasoham Anbil Ramaswamy ============================================================ The Sankalpa which every Hindu makes while initiating any religious practice, invariably refers to the exact locale where the rite is performed with reference to the Hindu Cosmology. ( e.g.) In India, the locale part of the Sankalpa would be as follows : "Jambudveepe In the isle of the rose apple Bharata Varshe In the region called Bharata Varsha Bharatah Khande In the continent of Bharata etc. " Those doing the rites in the U.S.A, adopt the same as follows:- "Krouncha Dweepe In the island called Krouncha Ramanaka Varshe In the region called Ramanaka Varsha Aindra Khande In the continent called Aindra Prasantha Saagare*: Near the Pacific Ocean Pushkara Kshetre* In the locale known as Pushkara Rocky - mickelny Parvatayor Madhye* : Between the mountains of Rockey and Mickelny Misissipi- Missouri Ityadhi Aneka Shodasa Jeeva Nadeenam sameepa stite : the place that is surrounded by such perenniel rivers like Mississipi , Missouri and 16 other rivers * These are optional. Some priests use these; others leave them. ============================================================ It may be noticed that any rituals which a Hindu performs on auspicious as well as inauspicious occasions always start with a fixation of the precise time, the star, the day, the Thithi, the fortnight, the month, the season, the half year , and the year on the micro side as also the quarter of the yuga, the name of the yuga , the name of the cycle, the Manvantara, and the Kalpa on the Macro side. In fact, orthodox Hindus do this reckoning daily in their 'Nitya karma Anushtana' the daily routine Puja ( honouring) of their Ishtadevata. In this way the formula for describing the exact time in the eternal cycle has been passed on from generation to generation. This is what we call the "Sankalpa' before commencing any rituals. This is also true of fixation of the exact location where the ritual is performed.as already discussed in the 'Section on ' Space'. Now, let us have a look at this Sankalpa: It goes on like this: Dviteeya parardhe In the second half of Brahma's life Svetavaraha Kalpe In the Kalpa of Sveta Varaha Vaivaswatha Manvantare In the reign of Vaivaswatha Manu Ashta Vimsati me within the 28th cycle Kali Yuge In the Kali yuga Prathame Pade In the first quarter thereof Then, the Sankalpa refers to the geographical position of the place where the ritual is performed. and this has been explained in the section on ' Space'. Resuming the reference to time, the Sankalpa proceeds further as follows:- Asmin Varthamane Vyavaharike : In the current period now proceeding Prabavadi Shashti Samvatsaranam Madye : Among the cycle of 60 years starting from Prabhava ......... Nama Samvatsare : in the year named ......... Dakshinayane or Uttarayane : in the Soutern/ Northern movement of the Sun ......... Ritou : in the season named ......... Mase : in the month of ......... Pakshe : in the bright / dark fortnight thereof ......... Punya Thithou : in this holy Thithi numbered ......... Vasara uktayam : on the day called ......... Nakshatra uktayam : when the star called ......... holds sway Then, the Sankalpa proceeds to say that the ritual called..............is performed for the pleasure of the Lord. If you need more information, please feel free to contact me =============================================== The concept of Time in Indian Mythology Beliefs and Legends Festivals celebrate the passage of time. Celebration of a new Gregorian year is just that. It is an acknowledgement of the passage of 12 months and the commencement of another. In terms of time frames our existence on this planet is but a speck in the grand scheme of creation. It was a good 400 years ago that the emperors of Vijayanagar created magnificient monuments all over south India. It was about a 1000 years ago that the Thanjavur Periya Koyil, the Hoysala monuments and other towering temples came into existence all over India. The Ellora temple even predates these. It was 1400 years ago when the Bhakti movement of south India saw the documentation of the existence of temples. It was about 2000 years ago when the Tamil Sangam literature documented the existence of places of worship such as Tiruvenkaadu. The excavated remains of Indus valley are 5000 years old. That is a 5000 year timeline - history as we may call it. How does Indian mythology view time ? M. H. Krishnaswamy of Chennai authors this Templenet feature on 'Time - as viewed in Indian mythology'. The smallest unit of time is a kaashta which is 18 times the amount of time it takes to blink an eyelid. 10 kaashtas make a kshanam and 12 kshanams constitute a muhoortam. 60 of these muhoortams constitute a day. 30 days constitute a month and 3 months make up a ritu. 12 months of course constitue a human year. We now move on from the human plane to the world of the departed souls - the pitrus. Here, a human month equals the length of a day. The brighter half of a lunar month constitutes the pitru's day time and the darker half their night. In the realm of the Devas or the Gods, a human year constitutes a single day. The brighter half of the year Uttarayanam makes up the day time hours of the Devas while the darker half Dakshinayanam makes up the night time hours. An epoch or a yuga is the next higher level of measurement. 1200 Deva years constitute the Kaliyuga or the present epoch that we are believed to be living in; 2400 deva years make up the Dwapara yuga that preceded kali yuga; 3600 years made up the Treta yuga and 4800 the Krita yuga respectively. Thus, the length of the Kaliyuga is 1200*360 i.e. 432,000 human years. A cycle of 4 yugas is referred to as the catur yugas. A cycle of catur yugas lasts for 12,000 deva years or 12,000* 360 i.e. 4,320,000 human years. How do these time measurements correlate with the process of creation? Bhrahma in Indian mythology is referred to as the creator. A thousand catur yugas are said to make up the daylight hours of a single day of Bhrahma's life. Another thousand make up the night time of a single day of Bhrahma. Thus, a single day in Bhrahma's life spans 2000 * 4,320,000 ie. 8,640,000,000 human years. 360 such days, each lasting 8.6 billion years constitute a year in Bhrahma's life, which lasts for a 100 Bhrahma years. At the end of one Bhrahma's life, another starts. This cycle goes on and on. A Bhrahma's life is also known as a Para. Each half param is referred to as a parardham. It is believed that we are currently living in the 2nd half of the life of the present Bhrahma. It is to be noted that in the performance of Vedic rituals, the frame of time in which the ritual is being performed is specified both in macro and in micro terms, the term 'dviteeya paraardhe' (the second half of Bhrahma's term) is stated. The reference point here is the moment of commencement of creation of the Universe by Bhrahma. When we say 'dviteeya paraardhe', which Bhrahma are we referring to? How many Bhrahmas have preceded the current one? This specification is non existant in vedic mantras. Since the whole process is cyclical, with one Bhrahma commencing when another completes, and with this process repeating forever, there may not be any significance in stating the position of Bhrahma. In a cyclical concept of time every starting point will have to be an ending point. If time is postulated as being linear and unidirectional there will have to be an absolute starting point for time. This cyclical nature of time as believed in Indian mythology refers to time as 'anaadi' or that without a beginning. Yet another measure of time is Kalpa. The puranas are named after kalpas; thus we have the matsya kalpa, koorma kalpa, lakshmi kalpa, sweta varaaha kalpa, shiva kalpa, bhrahma kalpa, vishnu kalpa and so on. Each Bhrahma's term lasts for a period of 7 kalpas. The current period in time is said to belong to the sweta varaaha kalpam, which is in the second half of the life of Bhrahma. A kalpam or an epoch is made up of 14 manvantaras and each manvantara spans 71 caturyugas. The fourteen manvantaras are respectively swayambhuva, sawosisha, audhama, thaamasa, raivatha, sakshusha, vaivasvata, savarni, daaksha savarni, bhramha savarni, dharma savarni, rudra savarni, rouchya and bowdhya. The present kaliyuga is the 28th in the present Vaivaswata manvantara. Sankalpam: Thus, vedic mantras pin point the time of performance of a ritual - by narrowing down from dwiteeya paraardhe (in the 2nd half of the term of Bhrahma), Sweta varaaha kalpe (in the kalpa sweta varaaha), Vaivasvata manvantare (in the 7th manvantaram), Kaliyuge (in the kali epoch) - through the finer details such as the name of the current year, month etc. --- Mithilesh Kumar Das <mithilesh_> wrote: > jay gurudev!!! > > what i need to recite about present 'sthan' if u an > performing guru pujan aur sadhana here in US. it > can;t be 'jammu dipe, bharat khande' if i am not > mistaken. > > regards > > Mithilesh > > > > > New Photos - easier uploading and sharing. > > > ===== Regards, Kumaravel Cell: (408) 569-6701 eFax: (501) 642-0436 --\ ----- Arise, Awake and Stop not until the goal is reached. - Swami Vivekananda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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