Japa Yajna For World Peace And Harmony

[Guest guest]

A Unique programme for mass distribution of the holy name.

 

ISKCON Bangalore has launched a unique programme to make thousands of people chant atleast one round of Hare Krishna maha mantra everyday on the temple on Hare Krishna Hill.

 

Over 9000 rounds of the mahamantra were chanted by pilgrims on January 1st, at Hare Krishna Hill. This marked the beginning of ISKCON Bangalore's offering to World Peace & Harmony in the year 2000: the Shata Koti Nama Japa Yajna (Sacrifice to chant 100 crore holy names of Sri Krishna) in the Year 2000, in ISKCON's Hari-Nama Mantap.

 

At 7:30 am on Jan 1st, Srila Prabhupada, in his Deity form, accompanied by the temple devotees inaugurated the Japa Yajna by chanting 108 times in the Hari-nama mantap. At 11 am, the Governor of the Indian State of Karnataka, Her Excellency Smt. Rama Devi formally inaugurated the Hari-nama Mantap by chanting the maha-mantra along with the devotees. Later in the day, there was a continuous flow of pilgrims through the mantap. Among them were also dignitaries: the Chief Minister of Karnataka, Mr. S.M. Krishna, the Revenue Minister, Mr. Srikantiah, the Union Minsiter for Culture Mr. Ananth Kumar, Former Union & Chief Minister Mr. Ramakrishna Hegde, the Mayor of Bangalore City, Mr. Ramachandrappa and various other state cabinet ministers.

 

The Hari-nama mantap is just located before the pilgrims reach the first temple of Sri Prahlada Narasimha. Designed in South-Indian style, this has two sets of 108 steps. A recorded voice of Srila Prabhupada chanting the mahamantra with full clarity resounds in the mantap, playing off a CD. One full round takes exactly 10 minutes - meaning that 1296 people can pass through the mantap in an hour, each chanting the mahamantra 108 times. Since each mantra is made of 16 holy names, it is counted that 1296 x 108 x 16 i.e. about 2.24 million names of the Lord can be chanted in one hour (if people are continuously passing through the mantap).

 

The inauguration of this wonderful programme has provided all the devotees here an unending opportunity to directly preach to people about chanting Hare Krishna and the glories of Lord Chaitanya. For some fortunate devotees, this has already been assigned as a full-time service in the temple.

 

On a week day, about 5000 pilgrims visit the temple (on an average) but on Sundays, festivals and other national holidays, the numbers can be as high as 40,000. In the first 3 days of operation of the mantap, we found that more than 60% of the pilgrims opted to chant through the mantap. If this continues and becomes popular, we foresee that the chanting of Hare Krishna will become a household affair in practically every other home in Bangalore City (population 6 million at present) within a few years.

 

We offer our humble prayers at the feet of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, our spiritual master Srila Prabhupada and all the Vaishnavas world-wide to bestow their blessings that this Japa Yajna programme will continue to grow and positively contribute to the spreading of the sankirtana movement.