Fw: where do we find size restrictions -saaligramam

[Guest guest]

SrI:

 

Dear devotees blessed with SaaLagrama

Murthys at Home for AarAdhanam :

 

It is my pleasure to share with you

the response from Sri MadahavakkaNNan

Swamy .

V.Sadagopan

 

Dear Sri Anbil:

Where does one find the size restrictions on Saaligramam for worship?

Why is it that Saligramams have to come from the Riverbed of GanTaki?

Neelameggham

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SrI:

Dear Sri neelamegham

 

Saalagraama is the one among the eight swayam vyaktha kshethrams. Of the swayam

vyakhtha sthalams, Saalagramam is said to be the most important. It is 60 miles

west of Kathmandu and is on the bank of thr river Gandaki. This is on the way to

Mukthee Narayana khsethram which is 100 miles off.

 

Why this river?

 

The Gandaka rises in the Saptha Gandaki or Davalagiri range of the Himalayas

which is the southern boundary of Central Tibet, and enters the plains at a

spot, called Tribent Ghat. This source of the river is not far from Saalagrama

which was the hermitage of Bharatha and Pulaha. The temple of Mukthinatha

[sriman Narayanan] is on the south of Saalagramam. Hence the river is called

also Saalagrami and Narayani..

 

The real and most expensive Saalgrama are found only in one place at the bottm

of the Gandaki River, in Nepal, one of the main tributaries of the Sacred

Ganges. Some of them are perforated by nature along with their axis; others have

all sorts of figures similar to carvings on them, such as Sudharsana or chakra.

 

the formulation is attributed by students of natural science to some species of

fish. the fish it is said, selects a small stone, nestles up to it closely and

then begins to spin, a nest or a shell for itself, the material for which it

emits like a spider out of its own organism. Having been imeersed in the shell

for sometime and feeling the tediuosness of solitude the fish breaks the shell

and swims away; the shila and shell then thus turn into Saalagrama.

 

Agamas and Saasthras say that Lord VishNu is dwelling in these Saalagrama silas.

 

This is the extract from english translation written in Sri Madhuranthakam Swami

malar [sri madhurakusumaanjali]

Regards

Namo Narayana

dAsan madhavakkannan