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My mom has ever been fond of Rudrabhishekam being performed in her own house at Gudur.
The first I heard of this ritual was after I took my parents on a pilgrimage to Kashi (Benares, the abode of Namo) in 1984 which was Father's only wish by me. After her ritual bath in the Ganges, my mom collected Ganges Water (Ganga Jal) in about half a dozen one-liter glass bottles for her own subsequent use during her lifetime. Ganga Jal was free then...I don't know now.
On their return to Gudur from their Kashi Yatra, my parents went through the default ritual called: Kashi Samaaraadhan (Kashi Feast). I couldn't participate in it since I was then too busy doing my own Samaaraadhan at IIT KGP (feeding marks to my students glancing at their answer-scripts). But I happened to be halting at Gudur for a couple of days on my way to Madras on one of my two official visits.
And my mom was earlier in tears saying that Kashi Samaaraadhan involved an elaborate Shiv Puja including Rudrabhishekam, and Shivji is ever fond of Bel Leaves (Bilva Patra) being dumped on his head, and there was not a single bel tree in Gudur. I consoled her that every other Qrs in KGP has a bel tree in its backyard since Bengalis are very fond of the fruit of this tree saying that it cures a couple of dozen bodily ailments...from constipation to cancer. So I collected a couple of bags of bel leaves and gifted them to her.
Apparently the feast was a great success with Father as the Karta of the Samaaraadhan.
I came to know that Sri Ramji, on his wayward way to Sri Lanka, found a Shiv Ling by the wayside at a certain place in Tamilnadu and performed Rudrabhishekam to it to propitiate Shivji and bless him that he would succeed in killing Ravanji and fetching Sitaji. The place is now called Rameswaram and is one of the holy Dhams. I always thought that Rameswaram temple has Sri Ramji's idol in its sanctum sanctorum but no...it is a Shivji's temple...one lives and learns and forgets.
After Father's death in 1994, on one of my visits to Gudur, my mom told me that she had promised Shivji that her only son would perform the next Rudrabhishekam at her home since it pleases Shivji and possibly gets her son a Deanship (which he declined later on).
I was dubious since I am not a devout brahmin, wearing the sacred thread as and when required and hanging it on the peg soon after the event. But she insisted and I asked her what it entailed. And she told me it is very simple...the Punditji will arrive from Nellore by the 9 AM bus, and start the proceedings, and the Punditji and I have to take fresh baths before the start of the ritual, and desist from eating anything at all till it was all over. This didn't scare me since I love taking as many baths as I can, and can starve as and when required...the Rudrabhishekam proper will be over by 1 PM (3 hours of puja during which I can't get up from my seat).
The Punditji arrived and after our baths and coffees (allowed as many times as needed in between), he took a brass plate and asked my mom to fetch all the Shiv Lings in her Pujagrih and her neighbors'. He himself collected a dozen from Nellore and also a Saligram that looked like a spherical stone to me (see picture above).
Apparently these Saligrams are found only in Nepal on the riverbed of Gandaki. And they are the very incarnations of Lord Vishnu (Sri Ramji). And the family which decides to install them in their puja has to obey very strict rules like they have to be worshiped everyday without fail, come fire or brimstone.
That reminded me of a charming story told by Father. Apparently this Rishi (whose name I forget) had a Saligram in his puja, and his kid-son (of Ishani's age) was very fond of pinching this stone early every morning and dumping it in their backyard well. The rishi had to jump into the well everyday and search and retrieve his Saligram. He got vexed by and by, and one day cursed his son that any stone that he threw into water will not sink henceforth but float...so that he didn't need to jump into the well anymore but just pick his floating Saligram using a rope tied to a bucket.
And in due course Sri Ramji had to build a bridge (Raam Seth) across the sea to go forth with his army to fetch Sitaji. And his monkey warriors used to bring boulders after boulders and dump them into the sea water...and they all sank without trace. And then someone told Sri Ramji about this rishi's kid with this curse on him, and Sri Ramji asked this kid to be fetched forthwith. The kid grew up into a youth by then and was only too willing to help Sri Ramji. Then on, as monkey after monkey brought their boulders, they would hand them over to this guy who would throw them into the sea one by one and they would keep floating forever...making a veritable pontoon bridge:
So our Pundit arranged all those idols in the brass plate and my mom handed him the Panchamrit fluid consisting of:
1. Milk, 2. Sugar, 3.
Honey, 4. Curd, and 5. Ghee
And arranged a bucket of well-water brought from the local Shiv Temple and mixed it with the Ganga Jal in one of her old bottles. And everything else was made ready.
And our Punditji instructed me that all I had to do was sit down and keep pouring spoonfuls of this holy water on the idols again and again and again for all of 3 hours...that's all... as he would be reciting his Rudram Namakam Chamakam.
I asked my mom why she goes about this drill every once in a while and she replied that she loves to hear the recitals of these holy chants. Indeed I too began to love them. As you can guess, they are full of Namo (sorry PM!) and Cha ('and') like:
And arranged a bucket of well-water brought from the local Shiv Temple and mixed it with the Ganga Jal in one of her old bottles. And everything else was made ready.
And our Punditji instructed me that all I had to do was sit down and keep pouring spoonfuls of this holy water on the idols again and again and again for all of 3 hours...that's all... as he would be reciting his Rudram Namakam Chamakam.
I asked my mom why she goes about this drill every once in a while and she replied that she loves to hear the recitals of these holy chants. Indeed I too began to love them. As you can guess, they are full of Namo (sorry PM!) and Cha ('and') like:
...namo bhavavaaa cha rudraaya cha
nama: sharvaaya cha pashupataye cha
namo neelageevaaya cha
shitikanthaaya cha
nama: kapardine cha vyuptakeshaaya
cha
nama: sahasraaksaaya cha shatadhanvane
cha
namo gireeshaaya cha shipivishtaaya
cha...
As to why it takes all of 3 hours is because the Namakam Chamakam shloks (a few hundred of them) have to repeated all of 11 times back and forth!
I was a great success in the ritual because I had ceased to be a chain smoker by then and didn't have to sneak away every half hour as I had to in my marriage.
And then in April 2007, I got a phone call from my mom saying that her 85th birthday was soon coming up and she wished to have a Maha-Rudrabhishekam performed on the occasion in her home at Gudur and she wished I would go there and preside over it. And I asked her what this Maha adjective was all about since I was thorough with the Mini thing alright. And she told me that it consisted of as many as 11 ordinary Rudrabhishekams.
And since the phone bill was mounting, she cut it at that leaving me wondering if I can sustain 11 of those things at one go...maybe the whole thing would take a couple of non-stop days during which I had to starve.
Anyway I reached Gudur a day before and my mom told me not to worry.
Next morning I was waiting for our Punditji and he arrived from Nellore duly followed by 11 well-fed youth in pants and shirts and beedis. And our Punditji told me proudly that they were all his students (shishyas). And they started chatting and reading newspapers and when my mom invited them for their baths, they refused saying that they had already had their baths at Nellore. And mom was dubious but her Punditji assured her that he was a witness to their baths. And he ordered them to strip and get into the dhotis hidden in their bags.
And they did it and were waiting and sulking and demurring. Mom asked them what was the delay for and the Punditji whispered to her that his students were all graduates working as school teachers and they were not used to starving and had to be fed tiffin by way of upma or idlis.
Mom was stunned and had to send me to the Iyer Canteen to fetch 12 plates of upma.
After gorging on their second breakfast (they had theirs at Nellore), they got ready and all of them took their seats in a semicircle around Shivji and his stones and idols.
Punditji didn't have to instruct me what to do since I knew the job cut out for me already.
And as he began chanting his Rudram Namakam Chamakam, I was bracing for a longish ordeal, and I asked our Punditji how long his 11 recitals would take...11 x 3 = 33 hours?
He laughed and replied:
"No, no, all of us (including his 11 disciples) would read the texts simultaneously....that makes 11 Rudrabhishekams in just the same 3 hours"
Mathemagic!
I was reminded of our childhood quiz:
"If it takes 2 hours for 1 sari to dry on the wash line, how many hours it would take 10 saris to dry?"
"No, not 2 x 10 = 20...no! Just the same 2 hours!"
...Posted by Ishani
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