Sarawati Puja

[Guest guest]

Respected VAsu VAdhyar,

 

I am very familiar with the points you mentioned about thathvams,

and 'aakaashaat patitam toyam' etc. (I also have full respect for

smaartha/Iyer sampradaayam as many of my friends are from these

traditions). But my question was slightly different:

 

When Iyers or Smaarthas perform, say, Ganapathi pooja, I have often

seen them use purusha suuktam to offer the sixteen upaachaarams, or

for the abhishekam. I completely agree that we should respect all

deities, whether Vaishnava or not. But if a Vaishnava priest performs

pooja for Ganapati using, for example purusha suuktam which refers to

'parama purusha', is it not implying that Ganapati is parama purusha?

And would not some Vaishnavas find this unsettling, somewhat at odds

with the 'vow of one husband' which you mentioned? So, is there any

style of offering shodashopaachaarams to these deities, while giving

them full respects, but not necessarily calling them

'parabrahman/paramapurusha' etc.?

 

(Of course smaarthas should perform the pooja as per their

sampradaayam and belief - I am only asking if Vaishnavas should

perform it differently)

 

I think this question relates to Vaideekam because as you rightly

say, if we can all learn to perform some rituals at least for our

family and locals, we will be preserving some of our culture. But

this above question will no doubt come up - especially when these days

Vaishnavas live amongst not only Smaarthas but many other communities.

 

I think it is important to serve all of society, but not to

compromise on our own sampradaayam. Which is why, I wonder, when I am

asked by some friends to perform 'ganapati pooja' or 'saraswati

pooja', which shlokas should I use, and is it OK to be doing it?

Specifically for Saraswathi pooja, I heard that Sri Vaishnavas do a

variation of normal perumAL/thAyAr ArAdhanam and wonder how this

ArAdhanam is conducted?

 

with praNAmams,

namO nArAyaNAya

 

Ranjan

 

 

***Dear Mr.Ranjan,

Do not get confused, you do not differentiate human as Vaishnava and non

vaishnava. You can do pooja to any deity with the slokha what ever you know. The

god will satisfy with that sloka but you could not satisfy the bhaktha without

the specific slokas for the specific god. You do pooja who are all accepting

your method of pooja, and try to learn other slokas to satisfy others. There are

plenty of websites offering different manthras and slokas for different form of

gods. You can even take the slokas with a tape recorder to tell the slokas and

you can do only the actions according to that slokas.

VAsu VAdhyAr