Namasthe- Japamaala

October 19, 2008

Dear all,

When doing japam or chnating with a japamaala, I have heard that once we reach the Sumeru rudraksham or the bigger bead in the maala, we have to come counterclockwise and count back to the first bead. I always wondered why we cannot cross the Sumeru or Meru bead and continue the clockwise counting. Recently I read about a reason behind that rule. I am sharing that with all of you.

There are two types of malaas: Rudrakshamaala and Spatikaakshamaala.

Rudran is Shiva and aksham is eye. So rudraaksham is Shiva's eye. So the Rudralskamala represents the garland made of Shiva's eyes or Thirukkkanmani meaning sacred pupil of the eye. According to Shiva Purana " Rudraksha's origin is Lord Shiva's tears. He had been meditating for many years for the welfare of all creatures. On opening the eyes, hot drops of tears rolled down on the mother earth and gave birth to Rudraksha trees. " Usually there are 108+1, or 54+1 or 27+1 beads in Rudrakshamaala and the +1 bead is the Sumeru and while chanting you will not cross this bead.

It is said that Lord Surya when reaches Sumeru mountain, He will not cross the mountain, instead trace back in counter clockwise direction and come to the starting point in his daily journey. So taking Surya Bhagavan as an example, we do the japayaatra up to the Sumeru bead and trace back to the first bead. (according to Vishnu Purana Sumeru is an earthly representation of the cosmic mountain at the center of the universe)

In Akshamaaala or Spatikaaksha maala, aksha means not eye, but denotes the letters from " a " to " ksha " in the sanskrit alphabet. Spatikam means glass. There are 50 letters in Sanskrit and Akshamaala usually has 51 beads and the 51st bead is bigger and called Sumeru. So when we do one round of japam on Akshamaala we finish 100.

Let God bless us to make our jeevitha yaatra (life-journey), a japayaatra in which only good words preceded by good thoughts and followed by good deeds emerge from us!

Regards and prayers

Savitri