Gods must have been very satisfied with
the Shiva Vishnu Temple of South Florida Kumbhabhishekam. It was as if Varuna Bhagawan did another
Kumbhabhishekam after the priests had done.
But Varuna was very careful not to impede any festivities by allowing
the procession to finish and the devotees were safely inside the Temple or in
the Fellowship hall or in one of those nicely erected tents. The rain relented after the energy has been
re-transferred to the Vigrahas – how about that? How about those Garudas circling high above
the Raja Gopurams exactly at the time of Kumbhabhishekam? First there was this lonely Garuda and
several others followed and they all vanished out of sight after the
event. It was indeed a heavenly
blessing.
It is impossible to capture in words
the three days of festivities, but I will try my best to provide my experiences.
To appreciate the entire event one needs
to splice together several such viewpoints.
First, allow me to give a broad brushstroke of the festivities before
going into details. I would like to tip
my hat to the organizers for going into minutest details and executing in grand
style. I would recommend that this
should be documented as a model to be followed by other organizers. A lot of meticulous planning went in to
execute such a phenomenal event. I have
not seen Vaikuntam or Kailasham but the decorations took us pretty close. Our priests were augmented by several
visiting priests who were extremely knowledgeable; their Veda chanting was
simply divine. The religious committee volunteers
worked tirelessly to help the priests. How
about those who took care of the parking and transportation? They worked outdoor for hours together day
after day with a permanent smile on their faces. Thanks to the kids who volunteered at the
shoe stand – not a single shoe was misplaced.
Thanksgiving weekend is famous in the US for food. We were served with what seemed to be a never
ending supply of tastiest South Indian delicacies. We will talk about the cultural programs,
especially the Yaksha Ganam program. The
music from Nadaswaram and Thavil gave stiff competition to the silk sarees in
adding color to the festivities. It was
also a sort of reunion with those who used to live in South Florida and move on
elsewhere. It was real nice to see the South
Florida kids who had gone off to college or work come back and participate in
big numbers. Speaking of kids let me digress
a bit.
Dr. Vivek Murthy who grew up in our
community has been nominated to be the Surgeon General by President Barak
Obama. When he showed up at the
celebrations, there was a rustle in the crowd.
The kid who never fails to give me a hug will be the “Top Doc” in the
country. Jayanthi disputes “Vivek hugs
me first”. Right, whatever makes you
happy! Now we will be lucky to hug the
body guard! The entire South Florida community
is proud of Vivek’s accomplishments and we all wish him the best in the
confirmation process. Vivek – you will
be a fantastic Surgeon General. Let us
get back to function.
Nov
29, 2013 (Day 1) – We were engrossed in the religious
activities during the first half of the day following the Ganapathi and
Sudarshana Homams. Simultaneously a
whole lot of cultural activities were taking place in the Fellowship hall. One needs to omnipresent to view everything
that went on. Later I saw snippets of
the songs and dances by the talented South Florida community kids. Great job every one.
In the evening, we settled down at the
Fellowship hall to witness the program called Samarpanam. It was nice to hear a combination of music
and dance to live music by the Community teachers. I especially enjoyed the song on Kamakshi
when the singers were thoroughly synchronized – nice job by Madhu, Vasumathy
mami, Hema, Bhagi, Viji with Sanjay on the violin and Dr. Ramakrishnan on the mridangam. Noteworthy
among the dances was the one on Andal by Shilpa Krishnan. I enjoyed the injection of Bhagavad Gita slokas
in the middle of Sadinchane. It was
refreshing to watch the choreographed dances to a few Pancha Rathna
Krithis. Sri Srinivas and his students from Tampa added color to the music with his mridangam.
I wrote earlier about the energy
transfer from the main deities on to the mirror. Today the reversal of that process
started. The energy from the mirrors was
transferred to Silver Kalasams filled with water. Now the water became sanctified. There is one Kalasam for each deity which
were then taken in procession to the pooja tent for the homam and veda chanting
the following day.
Nov
30, 2013 (Day 2) –
The Kalasams were connected to the Shiva
Lingam and Sri Venkateshwara by what looked like a 300 feet long dharbha
strand. As the Veda mantras were chanted
the energy flows back into the Moola Vigrahas through those strands.
It was a great fortune to sit among the
learned Ritviks from the community and the priests and chant Veda mantras. Thanks to Rajesh who is trying real hard to
teach us. We participated in the chant
of Rudram, Chamakam, Purusha Suktam, Durga Suktam and Sri Suktam. Chanting such divine Vedas in unison can open
pathways to higher worlds. It was a
fantastic experience.
In the evening again we planted
ourselves in the front row in the Fellowship hall. We were able to see a few dances by advanced
students. Shilpa Sridhar captivated the
audience with her beauty, grace and talent.
Yaksha Ganam – I had no expectation as I
have never seen Yaksha Ganam performance before. It is a combination of dance, drama and
music. There were only two main dancers with
a supporting dancer. Audiences were taken
aback when the Krishna character made a grand entrance with really elaborate
costume. The story was about Shayamanthaka
Mani. This is a story where Bhagavatham
meets Ramayanam. Here is the brief:
Krishna was blamed for the loss of the gem
called Shayamanthaka Mani. Krishna goes
to the forest in search of the gem where he finds the king was killed by a lion
and the lion was also killed. Following the
footsteps that led to a cave Krishna finds Jambavan who had the gem. After a lengthy dialogue between the two, a
fight ensues. As Jambavan began to lose
the fight, he sees his Lord Rama in the form of Krishna. Jambavan gets his daughter in marriage to
Krishna and returns the Shayamthaka Mani.
There were just three characters in the
dance drama but coupled with their story telling it made it look like every
character came alive. I wish I knew
Kannada to understand the dialogue – well that will be my retirement project to
learn that beautiful language. The artist
who acted as Krishna is a professor but he was clearly a professional. The main actor was Jambavan came fully alive
at the scene right after his daughter’s marriage and departure. Both of them had impeccable rhythm and
gait. Live music accompaniment actually
faded into the background which speaks volumes of their dancing prowess.
Dec
1, 2013 (Day 3) – Today is the main Kumbhabhishekam
day. It was real nice to see all
families together so early in the morning.
After the daily homam, the Utsava Vigrahas were taken in procession into
the temple. This was followed by the
Kalasams taken by the priests into the Temple.
After that devotees got a chance to take the Kalasams around the temple
in procession. With the Nadaswaram music
preceding the entire community walked around the temple. Each Kalasam is filled with sanctified water
with the energy of the respective deity.
The energy is then transferred back to the deities with appropriate
mantras and abhishekam of the sanctified water.
For those who stayed outside the temple were still able to witness the
Kalasa Abhishekam through the closed circuit television installed at several
spots in the campus. The arrangements were
simply fantastic – no words can describe.
For those readers who have not been to
the Shiva Vishnu Temple of South Florida, the installed deities were Shiva as
Ekambaranadeshwarar, Kamakshi, Ganesha, Iyyappan, Saraswathi, Valli-Devayani
sametha Murugan, Chandikeshwara, Navagrahas, Nandi and Dwaja Sthambam from the
Shiva parivar. From the Vishnu parivar
we have Lord Venkateshwara, Lakshmi, Andal, Krishna, Rama parivar, Hanuman,
Vishwakshena, Garuda and Dwaja Sthambam.
As you can imagine it is quite an elaborate process to transfer the
energies from this many deities and transfer back. It is also very impressive that our Agama
Shasthras were so clear in instructing how to do this maintenance process. It is both practical and deep. The function concluded in the evening with
Kalayana Utsavam of Lord Shiva and Lord Venkateshwara.
Jayanthi joins me to express our gratitude
to Dr. Ramu Iyengar for his leadership and Sri Govindaraj for his execution and
our thanks to every volunteer in every committee for a job well done. Let me conclude with our namaskarams to all the
priests who conducted the function effortlessly.
