Saturday, September 21, 2013

Purpose of pindapradanam during death rites

At death, the physical body's funeral is performed. For further journey of the atma another body called aativahika sharira is created by the performer of the death rites. This is done by providing pindas to the atma from day 1 to day 9. Some provide all the pindas together on the 9th day. This is not appropriate. How the pindas provided on each day is utilized is given below.

Day 1 - creation of head
Day 2 - creation of eyes, ears and nose
Day 3 - creation of neck, shoulder and hands
Day 4 - creation of back, sides, stomach, hips and private parts
Day 5 - creation of thighs, knees and crus
Day 6 - creation of ankles, feet, fingers and marmas (vulnerable nerve centres), skin
Day 7 - creation of bones, skull and marrow, blood vessels
Day 8 -  creation of nails and hair
Day 9 - creation of strength and energy
Day 10 -  to take care of its hunger

With the body so acquired, the atma proceeds to the next world.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Combat strategy in the veda

Krishna Yajurveda 6.2.3 talks about the battle between devas and asuras. Tripura ( not the state Tripura) was the dwelling place of the asuras. It was made up of three layers, the lowermost of iron, the middle of silver and the uppermost gold. Devas found it difficult to conquer them.

They laid siege by surrounding it and cut of all supplies and help to the asuras. After depleting the asuras of all their strength in this manner, they were attacked and destroyed.

Veda says, those who know of this and even the laymen would strategize  in such a way that they don't attack the strong enemy directly. First lay siege, weaken and then attack.