Anant Chaturdashi Chaturmasa Vrata Samapti, Seemollanghana Mahalaya Paksha Prarambha.

Transcription

1 C A N A D A S A B H A O F C H I T R A P U R S A R A S W A T S S P E CI A L P OINT S OF I NT ER E ST : Upcoming Satsangs Important Dates ANZ Sammelan V O L U M E 4, I S S U E 5 Sweekar (CSCS NEWSLETTER) Upcoming Satsangs A U G U S T August Satsang: The next Satsang will be held on Saturday August 28 at the Mankikar residence in Burlington on the occasion of PP Parijnanashram Swamiji s III s punyatithi. The invitation circular with directions to the residence will be issued shortly including RSVP by August 18, Important Dates in August and September I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E : Annual Math 2 Vantiga Annual Math 2 Vantiga Punarpratishtha 3 NRI Shibir 3 Age of Saraswat 3-6 Community SVBF 6 In pictures 7 August 14 August 20 August 28 Sept 01 Sept 10 Sept 10 Sept 11 Sept 12 Sept 22 Sept 23 Sept 24 Naga Panchami Vara Mahalakshmi Vrata Punyatithi of Param Pujya Parijnanashram Swamiji III Shri Krishna Janmasthami Punyatithi of Param Pujya Anandashram Swamiji Swarna Gowri Vrata / Haritalika Shri Ganesh Chaturthi Rishi Panchami. Anant Chaturdashi Chaturmasa Vrata Samapti, Seemollanghana Mahalaya Paksha Prarambha. Australia-New Zealand Meet April 2011 The venue, dates and costs of this event have all been confirmed and following are the details. Venue: Quakers Hills Community Hall, Quakers Hill, Sydney Dates: Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd April 2011, (Easter long weekend) Catering: This is a fully catered event where in all participants will be provided with breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea/coffee and dinner for the two days. Program: Include a variety entertainment program and potentially one outdoor activity, monthly Satsang and AGM during this event. Accommodation/Hosting: Some Sydney based members have agreed to host guests. All are cordially invited to participate in this Meet. Please RSVP.

2 V O L U M E 4, I S S U E 5 Chaturmas 2010 Annual Math Vantiga P A G E 2 Chaturmasya Vrata has commenced in the presence of P.P.Sadyojat Shankarashram Swamiji at Shri Durga Parmeshwari Mandir, Karla on Ashadha Shukla Purnima Sunday July 25, 2010 and will conclude on Bhadrapa Shukla Purnima Thursday 23, See for details. The following article details the events at Karla Guru Purnima in Karla By Vanita Kumta We had been to Karla for Guru Purnima. It was a great spiritual experience. We all Saraswats are indeed twice blessed by Lord Bhavanishankara and a rich Guru Parampara. To make the spiritual process even more complete we have our present Mathadhipathi Swami Sadyojat Shankarashram who is our beacon of light, guiding us, holding our hands like a parent would hold a child s and taking us along the path of life, helping us constantly imbibe the true values of life. HE is at once a gentle inspiring mix of the old and the new. HE is at much at home with the young and the old, with Sanskrit as with English and Konkani, thus making even the most shy novice in spirituality & religion at home, helping him learn & improve. Two very good books on Sadhana Panchakam Vol 1 & Vol 2 were release in the august presence of Swamiji with the blessings of Devi Durga Parameshwari & Parijnanashram Swamiji (Sanjivani Samadhi Sthal). Both of them are treasure troves of knowledge on Stotras, Prayers and Pooja vidhis rendered in Sanskrit, English and with beautiful translations in English. They will be a great help to a student (any age group) who is not as well worst in the Sanskrit language and various vidhis. The presence of Durga Parameshwari and Parijnanashram Swamiji, our present Swamiji Sadyojat Shankarashram and our divine Guru Parampara could be felt in the air that we breathed, the smiles on the devotees faces, the very hills, valleys and dales of the beautiful surroundings of picturesque Lonavala and Khandala seemed to reverberate with the Jai Jaykars and the Omkar resounded in nature. Swamiji performed Vyas Pooja and all of us present joined in it. The Bhajans had their unique religious fervour with Swamiji leading the congregation. All in all it was a memorable experience and we drank it with all our senses, we were bathed in those robes of Ochre without wearing them. Our ears resounded with the divine melodious notes of Mantras, Shlokas and Bhajans. We came back home thoroughly rejuvenated despite coming home very late & winding up the day, curling in bed in the wee hrs of Monday morning. Such was the effect of a glorious Guru Pournima. It will remain embedded in my memory to eternity. Paying the annual Math vantiga is not mandatory. But it is a sacred duty of every bhanap who is gainfully employed. Math depends on the vantigas and sevas performed for daily viniyogas and maintenance of all sacred samadhis. Even though the vantiga can be given at any time during the fiscal year, the members are requested to remit their annual vantiga preferably in the beginning of the year. Those who are not certain whether they have paid their vantigas can call the Sabha Treasure at any time. It is hoped that the members will pay their and vantigas as soon as possible. **Note: It is preferred to have the majority Vantiga collections finished before the end of October 2010 so that Vinayak Shanbhag can remit the drafts and cheques by the end of November or early December 2010 to India. If anyone prefers to give post-dated cheques in Indian Rupess for bank in India (favour of Shri Chitrapur Math) or in dollar for local bank ( favour of CSCS), CSCS would be able to facilitate such an arrangement as well.

3 P A G E 3 The trustees have appealed to all devotees to send contributions and donations to the Manager of the Temple by M.O., Cheque/DD., drawn in favour of Shrimath Anantheshwar Temple, Vittal with full address and telephone number, so that they may send a receipt back. For detailed information about the programme, please visit the CSCS website. NRI Shibir 2010 will take place at the Shri Chitrapur Math in Shirali from December 24th, 2010 to December 30th, Anyone who is interested should contact Lalita Kulkarni (lalita.kulkarni@gmail.com). Who are Saraswats? Punarpratistha Shri Anantheshwar Vitthal - Courtesy of Dr. Somashekhar Naimpally and Dr. Kanak Raval In India, there are at least five Brahmin communities who claim themselves as Saraswat Brahmins, including: Gaud Saraswat Brahmins, Chitrapur Saraswats, Rajapur/Bhalavalikar Saraswat Brahmins, Kashmiri Saraswats, Punjabi Saraswats, Sindh Saraswats, Kutch Saraswats and Rajasthan Saraswats. This community, as a whole, has produced eminent personalities including Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, Vijay Mallya, Dr TMA Pai, Nandan Nilekani, Girish Karnad, Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Deepika Padukone, Shyam Benegal, and Guru Dutt. Though being miles apart from each other for ages all Saraswat legends claim of their ancestors having once lived on the banks of now extinct river Saraswati. Today, however, there is no doubt that Saraswats are among the oldest living communities in India still preserving their own indigenous culture which essentially hails from the Rigveda that which is believed to have been written by their forefathers during their stint on banks of river Saraswati. Their relationship with Saraswati River Age of Saraswat Community Even to this day many Saraswat s in their daily Sandhyavandana rite swears their allegiance to Rigveda. This apart, several of Saraswat rituals are conducted by reciting the hymns from the texts from Rigveda; firmly establishing links between Saraswats, Saraswati River and Rigveda. According to two distinguished historians and Vedic Scholars Dr. NS Rajaram and Dr. David Frawley for Vedic Aryans the holiest river was not Ganga but Saraswati. This they said because In Rigveda Ganga is mentioned only once while Saraswati is lauded no less than fifty times. There is at least one whole hymn devoted to Saraswati River. In a famous hymn, Saunaka Gritasamda, the seer of the second Mandala lauds the Saraswati as ambitame, naditame, devitame Saraswati: Sarasvati, the best of mothers, the best of rivers, the best of Goddess To follow the very descriptions given in the Vedic literature, Saraswati was the greatest river that then used to flow to the west of the Yamuna but to the east of the Sutlej. According to the seventh Mandala of the Rigveda attributed to the famous Rishi (Sage) Vasistha, the Saraswati was a mighty stream that flowed from the mountain to the sea sustaining the lives of Vedic people: Pure in her stream, from the mountain to the sea, filled with bounteous abundance for the worlds, nourishing with her flow the children of Nahusa. Interestingly, this very reference from mountain to sea gives us a valuable pointer to Saraswati geography. But today we have no river called Sarasvati flowing in this country or elsewhere. The question then is: whatever became of it? Thanks to archeology and satellite photography we now know that Saraswati gradually became weaker and finally dried up completely around 1900 or 2000 BCE or even a little bit earlier. According to several recent findings Vedic Saraswati once used to flow mainly through the channel of what is now an insignificant flow called the Ghaggar close to Indus thus making part of what we now know Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro civilizations. Even Satellite photos have shown that the Ghaggar was once a great river. Paul-Henri Francfort who recently surveyed the area calls it the immense Ghaggar system.

4 PAGE 4 Intensive research carried by Dr. Frawley and Dr. Rajaram has completely debunked the Aryan-Invasion theory. They have also strongly established that the so-called Indus Valley or the Harappa civilization (of which Saraswati River is a part) did not consist of just a few urban settlements. It was a part of a vast civilization that stretched from the borders of Iran to East UP, with some sites as far south of Godavari River; as far as its duration is concerned, it represents a continuous evolution dating back to 7000 BCE in terms of the sites and more are being found all the time. So we can see that this great civilization spanned over 5000 years! Saraswati s extinction Regarding the ending of this great civilization, thanks again to recent archeological and ecological findings, we now know how that end came about. By putting together those evidences on the basis of archeological and satellite studies it was most certainly due to gradual depletion of water resources in North India that culminated in a calamitous drought in the 2200 BCE to 1900 BCE period. Fig. 1: Map showing the flow of Saraswati from mountain to sea Fig. 2: Area covered by Indus-Saraswati civilization and its over lap with area covered by early Vedic Civilization. This was, also, a global phenomenon that affected civilization across an immense belt from southern Europe to India. The Akkadian (Sumerian) civilization of Mesopotamia was practically wiped out around 2200 BCE, while in Egypt, the so-called Old-Empire collapsed. In India itself, the mature Harappa civilization of which Saraswati was an integral part came to an abrupt end and there were severe dislocations. As SR Rao observed: In circa 1900 BCE most of the mature Harappa sites were wiped out forcing the inhabitants to seek new lands for settlement. They seem to have left in great hurry and in small groups, seeking shelter initially on the eastern flank of the Sutlej and the Ghaggar and gradually moving towards the Yamuna. The refugees from MohenjoDaro and southern sites in Sind fled to Saurashtra and later occupied interior of the Peninsula. SWEEKAR

5 P A G E 5 That this was not restricted to India is clear from a recently concluded major French-American study in Mesopotamia. The report of the study notes: At 2000 BCE, a marked increase in aridity and wind circulation, subsequent to a volcanic eruption, induced considerable degradation in land-use conditions this abrupt climatic change evidently caused abandonment of Tell Leilan, regional desertion, and collapse of Akkadian empire based in southern Mesopotamia. Synchronous collapse in adjacent regions suggests that the impact of abrupt climatic change was extensive. Whether a volcanic eruption was sufficient to trigger a drought so destructive may still be open to doubt; but whatever caused the draught, its effect now seems established beyond all doubts. The authors summarize their momentous findings as follows: The abrupt climatic change that generated Habur hiatus I and the associated Akkadian-Gutti-Ur III collapse are synchronous with climate change and collapse phenomenon documented in the Aegean, Egypt, Palestine, and the Indus. The reoccupation of the Habur plains [in the northern Mesopotamia] in the 19 th century BC and the sudden emergence of centralized Amorite control was evidently facilitated by the amelioration of climatic conditions These very recent reports make it clear that the ending of Harappan civilization was a part of a world wide climate change phenomenon that affected all ancient civilizations. Determining age of Saraswat Community There is no doubt that Saraswats were the people who played a pivotal role in the authoring of Rigveda. Thus the age of the Rigveda can easily be regarded as the age of the early Saraswats. Thanks to our understanding of ancient metallurgy, we can now say that Rigveda must be older than 3500 BCE. Kunal, a recently discovered Saraswati site in Haryana has yielded silver ornaments. This shows that their metallurgy must have been quiet advanced; for unlike gold, silver never appears in pure form and has to be extracted by separating it from other metals like copper. The archeological research dates Kunal to be much earlier than 3000 BCE. The presence of silver ornaments at Kunal shows that it is much later than the society described in the Rigveda. This is because Rigveda dose not know silver. The oldest Sanskrit word for silver is Rajata Hiranyam literally white gold and it is mentioned for the first time in Yajurveda. This evidently disapproves the currently ascribed date of Rigveda as 1200 BCE as Kunal is evidently the last phase of the Saraswati civilization. Interestingly though there are proofs to suggest a date marking the end of the Saraswati civilization there is no evidence to suggest its exact beginnings. Thus Dr. Rajaram has suggested that: All we have to do is look hard and deep along the Sarasvati and other Vedic rivers. Such sites are likely to date to 3500 BCE or earlier. These when found are likely to be from the Age of Rigveda. The key identifying factor will be the relatively primitive metallurgy of their artifacts.

6 P A G E 6 Conclusion: Today, though we have archeology telling us that: there was extensive trade between the Harappans, Egyptians and Sumerians besides presenting existence of science and mathematics much advanced to that age, our understanding of the Harappa Mohenjo-Daro or better put Sindu-Saraswati civilization is incomplete. Though we have evidence to suggest existence of now extinct Saraswati we are yet to find evidence to suggest beginning of the civilization. However with the available information we can fairly conclude that: 1. Saraswats, who once lived on the riverbed of Sarasvati, have a history equivalent to that of the Rigveda. 2. The riverbed of an extinct river found by American and French satellites near Harappan excavation are of Saraswati as the very description of the riverbed matches that of Saraswati mentioned in Rig Veda. 3. The Kunal excavations discovered on the riverbed of Sarasvati belong to the Yajurveda period dating earlier than 3000 BCE. And because Rigveda was written much earlier than Yajurveda the current idea of Rigveda being authored around 1300 BCE is false. 4. Given this we can firmly conclude that Sarasvati civilization of which Saraswats were once an integral part has a history of at least five thousand years. Article by: Dr. Mahesh Prabhu, Fellow of Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, London (UK). Sringeri Vidya Bharati Upcoming Events i. Mandala Pooja on Friday, August 6, 2010 According to the Aagama sastras that guide temple rituals "Mandala Pooja must be performed for a period of 48 days after the completion of the Maha Sampkshana or Maha Kumbhabhishekam. The Mandala puja enhances the divine presence in the re-consecrated moola (main) vigrahaas. To mark the completion of these rituals, the Mandala pujas will be performed on Friday, August 6th, Please bring your family and friends to the Temple, participate in the celebrations and obtain the divine blessings am Guru Prarthana 9.15 am Maha Sankalpam 9.30 am Ganapathi Pooja & Punyaha Kalasha Sthapana and Kalasha Pooja am Homa am Purnahuthi am Abhishekam / Pooja pm Maha Mangalaarthi followed by Maha Prasada (Lunch) ii. Dr. Abdul Kalam, Former President of India is expected to visit the temple in September. Details to follow. S W E E K A R

7 P A G E 7 Punyatithi of Param Pujya Parijnanashram Swamiji III on August 28 FUTURE SATSANGS Those who wish to sponsor future satsangs are requested to contact Maya Kulkarni. FUTURE Courtesy: Gourang Kodical of Bangalore SATSANGS Those who wish to sponsor future satsangs are requested to contact Maya Kulkarni. Courtesy: Collection of Jnanesh Chandavarkar of Bangalore Canada Sabha of Chitrapur Saraswats (CSCS) Chitrapur Heritage of Canada Inc. (CHCI) Board of Trustees: Maya Kulkarni, Vivek Kulkarni, Kishore Nadkarni, Vinayak Shanbhag, Ganesh Shenoy, Pramod Udiaver, Gautam Ullal. Editorial Team: Vinita Bijur, Vivek Kulkarni, Sadanand Mankikar, Ganesh Shenoy Web: Deepali and Vinayak Shanbhag Contact: 2540 Armour Crescent Burlington, Ontario Canada L7M 4T4 Phone: (905) info@canadasabha.com Articles for publication as well as questions, inquiries etc. may be forwarded by to Vivek Kulkarni (kulkarni77@rogers.com) or Sadanand Mankikar (sadanand.mankikar@gmail.com) or by mail to 2540 Armour Crescent, Burlington, Ontario L7M 4T4. S W E E K A R