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"To
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"To
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Salagram: Rules for Worship Posted February 2, 2004 The ISKCON GBC has given us Pancaratna Pradipa, and I thought of the following section: A devotee with two salagrama-silas should worship Them separately to avoid becoming distracted: Worshiping two dvaraka-silas or two salagrama-silas at once will cause disturbance in the mind. [Mantra-tantra-prakasa, quoted in the Hari-bhakti-vilasa] However, if a devotee has three or more salagrama-silas, he may worship them simultaneously. In such a case he should offer full worship to only one sila, known as the pradhana-sila; all the others he should simply bathe together with the pradhana-sila and offer Them tulasi, candana, and flowers. Some devotees worship the salagrama-sila in the late morning, after worshiping their other Deities. In that case one should complete the worship at least by noon. Also, one should not eat before performing the worship. The sastra warns that a person who eats before performing his morning salagrama-sila puja is condemned to live as a candala for the rest of this day of Brahma.
In the worship of the salagrama-sila, you should follow the same basic procedure as that for worshiping the Deity form of the Lord. However, you may expand many of the basic sixteen upacaras to include additional upacaras. These optional procedures allow for more elaborate worship according to the list of sixty-four upacaras. The temple salagrama-sila can thus receive full worship on behalf of the main Deities in the temple. Generally one offers the optional upacaras by substitution, either with flower petals or with visesa-arghya water. When offering each of the main sixteen upacaras to salagrama-sila, you may chant a verse from the Purusa-sukta. The Purusa-sukta is a Vedic hymn which is chanted when worshiping Lord Visnu, in which the Lord is described as the personification of the process of sacrifice. Ideally, the Purusa-sukta is chanted with svara and sama, or proper pitch and rhythm. This must be learned from an expert. In simplified salagrama-sila puja, simply chant the first verse of Purusa-sukta. In worshiping a temple salagrama-sila, you may use either the mula-mantra used for the main Deity, or the gopala-mantra (the sixth of the seven guru-given mantras), or the mula-mantra for Vasudeva (om namo bhagavate vasudevaya or om namo narayanaya). [See "Salagrama Sila: A Question," dipika.org, February 2, 2004] © dipika.org February 2, 2004 |
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