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| Satyanarayana puja |
Image source : mantraonline.com
I did mention that we had a puja in our house, last weekend. It is in fact called Satya Narayana Puja - one of most popular pujas done in Karnataka. Satya - truth, Narayana - another name for Lord Vishnu. Why is it more popular than others? My guess is the prasad - offering to God - made for this puja is really delicious :). It is somewhat similar to kesari bath (which is basically sweet upma). It is prepared by roasting equal measures of wheat flour, ghee, then cooking it with same amount of milk, with equal amount of chopped banana and sugar.
Why do I celebrate such a puja - when I am not even sure if there is a God - if yes, is He a Ram, Mohammed or Jesus? My husband, unlike me, is a practicing brahmin. He performs sandhya vandana every day before leaving to office. Sandhya vandana is recital of Gayatri , thrice a day, morning, noon and evening by all brahmin men who have sacred thread on their shoulders. It is taught to the child ideally around 8 years old, in a ceremony called Upanayana. This ceremony is supposed to be second birth of the person. And hence the name dvija - twice born, for brahmins.
I am not a dvija, women do not undergo upanayana, and I am not even sure I am a brahmin. In fact it is said to be sin for a woman - especially menustrating woman to hear Gayatri mantra. Well, it is a well known fact that our ancestors were no less MCPs than talibanis.
But I do know the mantra. Here it is
Om bhurbhavassuvaha.
Tatsavituvarenyam.
Bhargo devasya dheemahi
Dhiyoyanaha prachodayat.
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| Gayatri mantra |
Well, after publishing, I tried googling for the meaning of the shloka. And it is really complicated. Finally I understood the meaning from Kannada wikipedia.
The rough meaning can be
We meditate on the glory of the God who created the earth, sky and heavens. May he enlighten our minds.
You can find meaning and more info in this site www. gaytrimantrya.co.in.
You can find many videos of the mantra in youtube.
So there was this puja and all relatives were there. And I was least busy. There was cook for preparing various dishes - around 8 different curries for the rice, and sweets etc. And my husband was doing puja, instructed by the priest. My only duty was to touch husband's aram whenever the priest told me to - to remind the God that this man is performing the puja sapatneeka - with wife. And for the crowdophobic me, it was slightly difficult. I could not run away or hide somewhere as I was the hostess.
So I followed two little children into our backyard garden where this hibiscus plant. The little girl pointed at the plant and gave me a lecture for about 10 minutes non-stop about flowers, thorns, how to be safe etc. Sad part was I did not follow a single word of what she was saying, but kept mumbling hun, buva - huvu flower, ok etc. The other girl was busy telling her friend something else, which also I could not follow. It was beautiful listening to 2 year olds.
My day was made. Puje became sarthaka.
i didn't know that we could not hear gayatri mantra while mensurating!!! honestly, the hypocrisy of brahmins surpasses everything :(
ReplyDeletebtw, i landed on your blog searching for draupadi's images :D And, read your post on that topic - mahabharat being the greatest tragedy!! i just wanted to let you know that an email subscriptions gadget would be really helpful :)
Yeah, and it continues. In fact dalits who were abused and ill treated for centuries are getting some respite from the government, but we women do not. If there are chatur varnas, (brahman, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra), we women are the fifth ones.
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