In2-MeC

Want to learn practically everything there is to know about Shaligram and Govardhana shila worship? Visit this extraordinary website:

www.hknet.org.nz/sstp-1.html

If you go from there to www.hknet.org.nz/sstp-SuhotraS.html, you'll see a report about my own shila worship, taken from In2-MeC of May 15. It is worth your time to explore the whole site. For unlimited nectar, click, on the homepage, the "articles" icon!

The devotee behind this website is Jayatirtha Charana Prabhu. I've known him since the 1980s. I'm planning to vist New Zealand this winter. He lives in a town called Tauranga (just like Gauranga, but with a "T" in the front. ) I'm eager to spend some time with Jayatirtha Charana Prabhu, as he knows so much about Deity worship and yajna. He's mastered these devotional arts under the tutelage of South Indian brahmanas of the Ramanuja and Madhva sampradayas.

Over the last several weeks, through email, we've been discussing Sri Sudarshana Chakra. It started when I got an idea about a way to perform a "flameless" or in other words a manasa (mental) homa (fire yajna) for my shilas. I daily do a fire sacrifice for Them, but not every place I visit welcomes the idea of having a flame burn inside the house for an hour every morning. Even if it is just a small flame, it generates smoke, and smoke means soot. So I started to contemplate how a flameless mental yajna might be done when a normal
one was not possible.

I have a translation of a Pancharatra text called Laksmi Tantra, which is respected in the Ramanuja Sampradaya. That disciplic succession is also known as the Sri Sampradaya because it emanates from Goddess Laksmi. The Laksmi Tantra is spoken by Her. She devotes a whole chapter to Sudarshana. The word sahasra (one thousand), which is the first word of the Purusha-sukta hymn of the Rg Veda, is said by
Laksmi to refer to Sudarshana who is sahasra-jvala (thousand-flamed). He is a personification of the kriya-sakti of the Lord; it is by kriya-sakti or the power of divine activity that nitya-kriyas (regulated actions) like yajna are manifest in this world. Agni is manifest from kriya-sakti and Sudarshana is the essence of Agni. The syllable ra in sahasra stands for fire. (Jayatirtha Charana Prabhu pointed out that one name for the sun is Ravi, and in that name ra means fire. ) Laksmi Tantra says that Sudarshana is to be contemplated within the sacrificial fire.

So I proposed to Jayatirtha Charana that a manasa-homa might be performed by seating the Nila Sudarshana Deity in the small brass fire kunda and there offering Him worship as the sacrificial fire. He replied that this would be in order, since Vaishnavas worship the original Agni, Lord Narayana. The original Agni is specifically represented by His divine potency, Sri Sudarshana Chakra. Lord Narayana is the antaryami (inner Lord) of the blazing Sudarshana who burns all that is material to utter destruction and thus dispells all darkness and ignorance.

The Nila Sudarshana Deity is a combined form of Lord Jagannatha (Narayana or Krsna) and His blazing chakra. The lotus face of Lord Jagannatha beams at the center of a ring of flames.

"There is nothing in the three worlds," says Goddess Laksmi, "that cannot be attained by this sakti [the kriya-sakti appearing as Sudarshana] who dwells in every single ritual. . . "

Jayatirtha Charana Prabhu informed me that Sripada Madhvacarya has explained the Vishnu-sahasra-nama-stotram (Thousand Names of Vishnu Hymn) word for word. From this we learn that the following holy names (numbered as they appear in the stotram) refer to Sri Sudarshana Chakra as well as to Lord Narayana Himself:

233) vahnih: Fire

293) analah: Fire

358) samayajnah: One whose worship is nothing more than keeping an equal vision of the mind by the devotee

359) havirharih: The receiver of all oblation

546) chakra-gadaadharah: Bearer of the disc and mace

826) sahasraarchih: He who has thousands of rays

827) saptajihvah: He who expresses himself as the seven tongues of fire (Types of agni)

828) saptaidhaah: The seven effulgences in the flames

879) hutabhuk: One who enjoys all that is offered in yajna

908) chakree: Holder of the chakra

967) bhoor-bhuvah svas-taruh: The tree of bhur, bhuvah and svah

971) jnahya: One whose very nature is yajna

972) yajnapatih: The Lord of all yajnas

973) yajvaa: The one who performs yajna

974) yajnaangah: One whose limbs are the things employed in yajna

975) yajnavaahanah: One who fulfils yajnas in complete

976) yajnabhrid: The ruler of the yajanas

977) yajnakrit: One who performs yajna

978) yajnee: Enjoyer of yajnas

979) yajnabhuk: Receiver of all that is offered

980) yajnasaadhanah: One who fulfils all yajnas

981) yajnaantakrit: One who performs the concluding act of the yajna

982) yajnaguhyam: The person to be realised by yajna

995) chakree: Carrier of Sudarsana

Jayatirtha Charana himself sometimes does manasa-homa in circumstances where the physical appearance of Agni is not possible. He very kindly explained how he does it with special mudras. He finishes the ceremony with dhyana (meditation) upon the glories of Lord Vamanadeva. Explaining this, he drew my attention to this verse and purport:

Whenever the activities of Vamandeva are described in the course of a ritualistic ceremony, whether the ceremony be performed to please the demigods, to please one's forefathers in the Pitrloka, or to celebrate a social event like a marriage, that ceremony should be understood to
be extremely auspicious. [Bhag. 8. 23. 31]

Srila Prabhupada's purport:

There are three kinds of ceremonies -- specifically, ceremonies to please the Supreme Personality of Godhead or the demigods, those performed for social celebrations like marriages and birthdays, and those meant to please the forefathers like the sraddha ceremony. In all these ceremonies, large amounts of money are spent for various activities, but here it is suggested that if along with this there is recitation of the wonderful activities of Vamanadeva, certainly the ceremony will be carried out successfully and will be free of all discrepancies.

So now, to close every homa (whether it is done with flame, or with Nila Sudarshana standing in when a physical flame isn't feasible), I chant

chalayasi vikramane balim adbhuta-vamana
pada-nakha-nira-janita-jana-pavana
keshava dhrta vamana-rupa jaya jagadisha hare

"O Keshava! O Lord of the universe! O Lord Hari who have assumed the form of a wonderful dwarf-brahmana! All glories to You! With Your massive steps You deceived King Bali, and with the Ganges water emanating from the nails of Your lotus feet You deliver all living beings in this world. "