Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Nov/Dec 2013 Shiva Vishnu Temple Kumbhabhishekam

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.

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