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Hello friends, Here is an occasion to celebrate someone's Birthday! The Birthday of somebody who carefully watches every moment the every movement of yours and protects you, for He loves you most, you are his beloved children. It is the birthday of a never-born. Come On!! I am not joking. It is because, we wanted to celebrate the birthday of a never-born person in this universe ………………………
So, the question is who is He? The "God of Gods", He is popularly known as "Mahadeva". The giver of bliss, called "Shiva" and the destroyer of evils called "Rudra". So, Let us celebrate MahaShivRatri on 12th March 2002, not by cutting a cake!!!, for we observe fasting on this auspicious day ... Why fasting? Because we are overjoyed!! This is a similar practice followed by vaishnavites on janmashtami or Krishnaashtami day.
And there is something more!!! We are awake in the night. Again a BIG why? Just for the fun of it? Because we want to celebrate? NO. We are driving away the (D)evils, who are at their peak during night. This is something unique. It is not the Jagaran that we do on NewYear's Eve ... It is the awakening of self ...
And What more? "Sankara" is called Bholenath. He is Bhola. He grants every wish of anybody without any distinction. He is the Lord of Pancha MahaaBhootaas. He wears serpents as his ornaments and he took the "great poison" to save the world... while other gods, enjoyed fruits like Kalpavriksha, amrutam(nectar) etc. There is also another important attribute to the First couple of this universe. The Parvati-Parameshwara are called the adi-dampatulu. I don’t know why... ? But want to quote Kalidasa "Vaakarthaaviva sampruktau, Vaakartha pratipattaye, Jagataha pitarau vande Paarvateeparameshwarau" The couple are inseparable like the "Word and it's meaning". They are parents to the whole world. We should also remember at this point that Lord shiva gave half of his body to Parvati mata. "Vaarika shaila kumaariki priyapadi korina artha shareerambistivi". Shaila kumari is the daughter of the king of mounatins.
Okay ... so far so good! How do we propitiate Lord Shiva? Its very simple ... He needs nothing but a glass of water on his head (probably to cool him in the beginning of summer … just joking) and a piece of Bilva leaf. The Best pujan that can be offered to lord shiva is abhisheka... Usually performed in the evening time and specially on shivaraatri, exactly at midnight 12:00 pm. The mantras recited during abhishekam are called "Namakam Chamakam".This is a set of two chapters of prayers selected from the yajurveda. Details can be found at the website: http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/mirrors/vv/rudrint.html In addition,the puja is also referred to as Mahanyaasa poorvaka ekadasha ridraabhishekam. In this, the Namakam is repeated 11 times, each time reciting one verse from the chamakam and the whole procedure is preceded by Mahanyasam. I don’t know the meaning of Nyasam, but is something like an act or action. I believe in this pre-procedure, we establish the God in all 8 directions and in all parts of our body and puja saamagri. The Namkam establishes the universality og God. Both Namakam and chamakam are highly poetic with repititions of "Namo Namo" In the Namakam and "Cha mey - Cha mey" in the chamakam. As you all know "cha" in sanskrit means "and" and "mey" probably refers "to me". So in Namakam , we praise the Lord and in Chamakam, we ask him to give us prosperity. So selfish! Not really... For we pray for welfare of all!! Not just ourselves ... Be proud to say " I am a Hindu" ... Not by religion but by the spiritual heritage that you have inherited. "We are the people who have exhibited and still persist on a high degree of tolerance". We acknowledge that all rivers flow into the same ocean.
"Aakaashaat patitam toyam... Yathaa Gacchati saagaram ... Sarva deva Namaskaaram ... Keshavam prati gacchati"
Thank you for reading this page!!! This Page was written on the occasion of Mahashivaraatri of the year 2002 and the site is maintained by Krishna Prasad Miyapuram...I hope to add more links and information into my website http://www.geocities.com/kpmiyapuram , but I am finding little time to do that!!!
Useful links: http://www.geocities.com/onlineaarti/aartiani.htm http://www.vedah.com/yvweb/rudra.htm A collection of WEBPAGES on my website: Educational Philosophy : A monograph on educational philosophy of swami Ranganathananda of Ramakrishna math four gods: Ganesh, shivji and saraswatiji and a separate page on Saibaba with two photographs (one is black and white…) Photo gallery: Have darshan of gods… a collection of images that I have got from the net An excellent website is http://www.mantraonnet.com http://www.urday.com/onlineaarti.htm I am forwarding a small detail which I have downloaded from the following website: http://www.eeshvandana.com/mahashivratri.htm You need not revisit the website as the contents are already given below: However, you can look at other great goodies this website is offering …. If you have a good and probably free net connection and enough time to enjoy the spiritual heritage that Hinduism has to offer!!! MAHA SHIVRATRI This festival is celebrated on the thirteenth day of the waning moon in the month of Phalgun. This festival symbolises the wedding day of Lord Shiva And Goddess Parvati. This is the night when Shiva is said to have performed the Tandava or the dance of creation, preservation and destruction Shivratri is a very auspicious day. The married and unmarried girls perform puja with great faith, fervour and feeling, since Parvati is considered "Gaura" -- the giver of Suhag. They pray to the Goddess to give them a good husband,marital bliss and a prosperous married life. On this day every member takes a bath early in the morning and wears clean clothes.Devotees fast during the day and maintain a long vigil during the night.The puja room is cleaned and the images of Ganesh, Shiva and Parvati are cleaned and placed in the centre of the room. When going to the temple, people take a vessel ( usually made of copper) filled with water with a little Ganga jal and milk mixed. The other things taken are leaves of bel tree ( belpatra), a bel fruit, dhatura , bhang, aak, and bits of flowers, fruit, aipun, roli and rice , a small katori with oil and a wick of cotton all nicely set in a thali which can be carried easily. In the temple the devotees bathe the Shivling with water mixed with milk by pouring the liquid slowly on top of the ling. The puja is done then with water, roli, aipun, rice and flowers and fruits are offered. A small jyoti is lit and arti is performed by circling with the thali 3 to 4 times in front of the ling. Parikrama is then performed three times. In the case of Shivling the parikrama is half only; one returns from where the water falls away from the ling. This water is given as charnamrit to the devotees but the prasad is not eaten as it contains poisonous substances. Maha Shivratri is the most revered festival of the Kashmiri pundits and is celebrated for full sixteen days. |
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