Voice your support for Sanskrit

Hindu Rituals and Routines - Part 5

Two more practises and its importance are explained in this submission.

~Namaste to all ~

11. Why do we do circumambulate at temple/auspicious locations?

We cannot draw a circle without a center point. The Lord is the center, source and essence of our lives. Recognizing Him as the focal point in our lives, we go about doing our daily chores. This is the significance of circumambulate (pradakshina). Also every point on the circumference of a circle is equidistant from the center. This means that wherever or whoever we may be, we are equally close to the Lord. His grace flows towards us without partiality.

12. Why is circumambulate done only in a clockwise manner?

In India the right side symbolizes auspiciousness. As we do pradakshina, the Lord is always on our right So as we circumambulate the sanctorum we remind ourselves to lead an auspicious life of righteousness, with the Lord who is the indispensable source of help and strength, as our guide - the "right hand". Indian scriptures enjoin - matrudevo bhava, pitrudevo bhava, acharyadevo bhava . May you consider your parents and teachers as you would the Lord. With this in mind we also do pradakshina around our parents and divine personages. After the completion of traditional worship (pooja), we customarily do pradakshina around ourselves. In this way we recognize and remember the supreme divinity within us, which alone is idolized in the form of the Lord that we worship outside.

This is a stump created to the subject above that may explain about the “idol worship” (Suggestions and recitations are invited, details explained below are to the little knowledge I gathered and true to my consciousness) As you know that the idol of a temple is kept within the shrine of the temple complex and the idols are worshipped with lighten lamps, chanting mantras and submitting flowers, sandal paste, ghee, curd, rose water camphor etc. Lighten lamp emits light and heat energy (ghee followed by oil is the best light/heat energy providing substance), chanting mantras in rhythm creates sound waves thus energy (that is what the priest do), flowers, sandal, camphor, ghee, rose water etc provides chemical energy all these energies are stored to the idol that in turn emits the energy to the outside, we devotees while circumambulate the shrine the rays of emitting energy passes through our body (or we cuts the rays) by which our body gets the positive energy; that is the reason we are bounded to go to the temple with clean body, clean dress, clean mind etc., avoiding carrying negative energy to the temple and create a negative effect that will reduce the positive energy which could have been beneficial to many other devotees. As I said above, the collected and in turn emitted energy by the idol eventually will become zero within few hours and need to be compensated; that is the reason at temples pujas are held thrice (minimum in normal days); in the morning, in the evening and at night. During Festivals (Utsav) Pujas are held more often (than three times) attended by more priests, more lights will be lighten, number of flowers and other thing submitted will be increased and the energy gathered by the extra pujas and related functions by the idol will be emitted to the surrounding area/village/town through the flag post of the temple; as such the location of temple is have a major role in the improvement of all aspect of its surrounding and human beings, as such temples are not mere a place for gathering, meeting and for praying, instead it’s a place to gather some positive energy to the visitors life; and a temple where regular pujas are not carried is not a worth while place to visit than as a tourist place/monument.