Chitra
Pournami is a very significant
day. The Pournami thithi starts at 7.44 PM on 6th May and ends at
4.14 PM on 7th May. It is a unique festival dedicated to Chitragupta, the Manasa Putra of Lord Brahma, and is celebrated on the full moon day of the
month of April-May (Chitirai Masam in Tamil), believed to be his birthday.
Chitragupta is said to diligently record and
maintain the account of the good and bad actions performed by every human being
who is born on this earth. On the completion of a person’s life time, Chitragupta
prepares the final report to be presented to Lord Yama. This forms the basis
for the God of Death to decide the fate of that particular individual.
People celebrate this festival by taking bath in
holy rivers to wash off their sins and offer special pujas and prayers at
temples. Interestingly, some of the
temples dedicated to worship of Chitragupta are the Chitragupta Temple on Nellukara Street, Kanchipuram, Chitragupta
Mahadeva Devalayam in Hyderabad, Chitragupta temple at Kajuraho, and
Chitragupta Maharaj Temple at Chitragupta Ghat on the banks of the Gandak river
in Hajipur, Bihar.
In the temple at Kanchipuram, the main deity
of Shri Chitragupta is depicted in a seated position with a palm leaf in his
left hand and a pen in his right hand. The utsava murthy of the Lord with his wife Karnika Ambal is
beautiful. Priests and devotees offer
Sarkarai Pongal and other delicacies without salt as neivedyam for the Lord.
There is another legend associated with this
festival pertaining to Lord Indra and his Guru, Brihaspathi. The story goes
that they had an argument, after which the Dev Guru refrained from giving
advice to Lord Indra. Bereft of the
wisdom and proper advice of his Guru, Lord Indra committed various sins. Later
he realized his folly and sincerely repented for his mistakes. Out of sympathy
and compassion the Dev Guru resumed his duties and advised Devraj Indra to
undertake a pilgrimage on Earth. After a long journey, at a certain place,
Devraj Indra sensed that he had been redeemed of his sins. He found a
Shivalingam under a Kadamba tree and wanted to offer puja to the Lord in
gratitude. He looked around and surprisingly, in a pond nearby, he found a
golden lotus. He worshipped the Lord with the golden lotus. The place was the
holy city of Madurai and the day was the auspicious Chitra Pournami day. Even
today this divine event is commemorated with an Indra Puja on Chitra Pournami
day at the Madurai Meenakshi temple.
Buddha Purnima, known as Vesak, also falls on 7th May 2020. The day is
extremely significant, not only because this was the day when the little prince
Siddhartha was born some 2500 years ago, but because he attained enlightenment
under the Bodhi tree in Gaya and became Gautama Buddha, the founder of
Buddhism, on the same full moon day. Interestingly he also got Nirvana or salvation in Kushinagar on
the same (Purnima) day in the month of Vaisakh. That moment of enlightenment, under
the Bodhi tree in Gaya, changed the course of spiritual seeking forever. The four
most important places of worship in Buddhism are Lumbini in Nepal, where
Buddha was born to the King Shuddhodana (King of Kapilvastu) and Queen Maya Devi, Bodh Gaya in Bihar, where he got
enlightenment, Sarnath in Varanasi, where he gave his first sermon to
five devotees, and Kushinagar, where at the age of 80, he attained
salvation.
On this day, we find
monks giving discourses and sermons highlighting the teachings of Gautama Buddha
at all these places. Devotees congregate to offer prayers and water to the
statue of Buddha placed in water and decorated with flowers, symbolic of a new
beginning. A large fair is held at Sarnath and the ancient relics
of the Buddha are taken out for public display in a procession. Giving food and
clothes to the poor is another important activity undertaken by the devotees.
Most of them prefer to wear white clothes, eat vegetarian food and distribute kheer in memory of a woman devotee named
Sujata, who had offered Gautama Buddha a bowl of sweet milk porridge on this
day.
Apart
from India, Buddha Purnima is celebrated with great religious fervour in many
other South Asian countries, including Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, China,
Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan.
Wishing everyone a
#HappyChitraPournami and a #HappyBuddhaPurnima #HappyVesak #Chitragupta #GautamaBuddha #BuddhaPurnima #Vesak #ChitraPournami
Good work Lalitha
ReplyDeleteThanks. We visited the Chitragupta temple at Kanchipuram last year. It is an ancient temple.
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