Can you tell about Ganesha Atharva Shirsham?
A2 Let us hear good things through our ears, see good things through our eyes and may we enjoy our life allotted to us offering praise to the Gods with our strong bodies.
May the gods Indra, PUsha, Garuda and Brihaspati bestow blessings on us and protect us. May there be peace all around (both outside and inside us).
I bow to thee, Ganapati. You are personified form of the Brahman. You are the creator, protector and destroyer of all beings, You are the in-dweller eternal evident Self in all of us.
I shall speak the scriptural truth and experiential truth only.
Please, protect me, the speaker, the hearer, the teacher and the taught, and the giver .. Please protect me from all sides and the directions (North, South, East and West).
You are the word, deed and thought. You are the truth, consciousness and bliss. You are the entire knowledge and science. You are the non-dual Universal Self. You are the personified Brahma, appearing before us.
This world has been created by you, nourished by you and again destroyed by you. This world leans towards you. You are the five elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether. you are the 4 -line stanzas of all hymns (four levels of speech).
You are beyond the three Gunas, the three states (of conscious, sleeping and dreaming), and the three time-periods . You are seated in the Mooladhara (pelvic region?) from where the Kundalini shakti is aroused. You are being meditated by the sages. You are the Creator Brahma, the Protector Vishnu and the destroyer Rudra ... You are the Indra, the Fire, the Air, the Sun, the Moon and the three worlds.
Your name starts with the letter 'ga', and ends with the letter 'sha' and in between come the letter 'a' and anuswara 'n'. These have symbolic meanings representing the 'ganas' of prosody, and the letters and sounds of 'akAra''anuswara' of the language and the 'sandhis' (letter combinations) of the grammar.
The sage of this hymn is 'gaNaka', its meter is 'nichRidgAyatrI' and the presiding deity is 'GaNapati'. I salute to the letter/sound 'gaM'. The mantrabIja ga with (म्+ as ardhachandra binduvirAma) is described as the true form of GaNapati! This part is giving the deeper vedic meaning of the mantrabIjaga and is called the gaNeshavidyA.
Praise be to the bearer of a single tusk which is twisted and crooked trunk. May we be inspired by the knowledge and meditation. This verse is also one of many interesting dialogs. It has the nature of a puzzle.
· One group says ekadantAya vidmahe - we know someone called
· ekadanta (do you know what we mean?), the other group responds
· vakratuNDAya dhImahi we think of him as vakratuNDa.
· Now they both agree that they are talking of the same God, so together they ·say tanno dantI prachodayAt- may he, dantI, invigorate us!
That sage who meditates on the Lord in the following manner is better than the other sages who meditate otherwise: The Lord holding a tusk, a rope, an instrument('ankusha') in three hands and a fourth hand showing the boon-giving posture and having his body smeared with a red fragrant paste wearing a red dress and being worshipped by red flowers, having the mouse as his carrier, a large stomach and long ears, compassionate to the devotees, being the cause of this earth, the one not slipping and appearing in person in the beginning of the creation and being beyond the primordial Nature.
Salutations to the Lord of gods and the one governing abstinence and discipline and controlling pride, to the large limbed and single tusked, to the remover of obstacles, to the son of Shiva and the boon-giver incarnate.
Now for the fruits from reading this hymn: The reader becomes equal to Brahma . He attains all happiness and is released from the five great sins . If one reads in the evening one is absolved of the sins committed during the day, if read in the morning the sins of the night are washed away, if read both times, one is totally absolved of all sins, read anywhere one is freed from all obstacles, one attains all the 4 objectives (Dharma, artha, kAma moksha), one should not, however, teach this to the undeserving student, if done so through infatuation, the teacher will become a sinner, read 1000 times, one achieves whatever is desired for.
The devotee becomes a master of speech, if read on the 4th day from New Moon/Full Moon, he becomes a great scholar and he knows no fear, never.
He who worships with 'dUrvA' grass becomes equal to the lord of wealth (Kubera), the worshipper who uses rice flakes, becomes a man of fame and scholarship, if one uses 1000 coconut-sugar mixed rice balls, obtains whatever he desires and one who uses ghee and 'samit' sticks attains everything, everything indeed.
By teaching this (atharva) to eight brahmins peoperly, one becomes greater than the Sun or if the idol is worshipped by chanting the mantra, at the time of the solar eclipse, by standing in a great river, one gets the effect of the mantra, he is released from great obstacles, great defects/imperfections and great sins.
Let us both (the teacher and the taught) be protected together, let us enjoy together, let us endeavour together, let our study be resplendent, let us not hate or quarrel.
Let us hear good things through our ears, see good things through our eyes and may we enjoy our life allotted to us offering praise to the Gods with our strong bodies.
May the gods Indra, PUsha, Garuda and Brihaspati bestow good things on us and protect us. May there be peace all around(both outside and inside us). Thus ends the hymn 'Ganapati atharva shIrShaM.'
Q3 Can you tell more on Vigneswara?
A3 We pray the Supreme being before beginning any Vedic ritual. In fact, prayer to Ganapati must be done before we do any activity. It could be done before we start our work, before we begin exercises, before we go to sleep.
The pujari makes a symbolic Ganesha with Chandan or Haridra applies Kumkum and starts the event. We close our fists and hit on both sides of head and hit gently to stimulate the brain, along with uttering this sloka.
Our consciousness is in us as the representation of that Supreme Self, the Atman, the Supreme consciousness.
We hit our temple on both sides with closed fists. This is done to stimulate our brain. That stimulation brings focus and concentration to our brain. And then we recite this mantra.
'Vigna' also means action. The other meanings are: impeding, hindering, obstructing preventing, exciting, agitating, interrupting destroying, opposing, As noun it refers to small and big obstacle. Vigneswara carries out a Prathi Kriya to remove the obstacles Easwara means the Lord. Vigneswara is the Lord of all our actions. Vigneswara is the remover of all obstacles.
The Vishnu shasranamam has this as the opening sloka, Sandhya vandhan again starts with this. When Ganesha was given the elephant head, he was brought to life and given various boons from different deities and was also given, that everything starts with a prayer from him
When we perform an action, we need to integrate and focus our eyes, ears, senses and body movements in performing that action. When we perform with such focus and concentration we would be at mental peace with our actions. If any of the four is missing, it would be called 'half-hearted'.
Our actions have to reflect the 'Consciousness' in each of us. If we perform actions that do not reflect that consciousness, then we won't be at mental peace.
Pure: Our thoughts have to be pure. They have to spotless. They need to be pure devoid of anger, jealousy, pride, ego and such things that would make them impure.
Saivites and Smarthas believe that this sloka refers to Ganesha. The Phrase Sarva Vigna Upa Santhaye refers to HIM as remover of obstacles. If it was Narayana the words should be Pethambaram and Megha Varman or Nella Megha Shyamalam etc.
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