Saturday 18 April 2009

Sankalpam: What is it?

The Sankalpam is an introduction to any ritual. All rituals, performed by a Hindu, auspicious as well as inauspicious, must have the following as an introduction:
  • Identification of the exact moment of the ritual by acknowledging the position of the planets
  • Identification of the object of the ritual. i.e.,what worship he is about to perform.
Rituals always start with a fixation of the exact location where the ritual is performed, the precise time, the star, the day, the Thithi, the fortnight, the month, the season, the Ayanam or half year , and the year , as also the quarter of the yuga, the name of the yuga , the name of the cycle, the Manvantara, and the Kalpa .This practice is a part of the daily ' Nitya Anushtana' the daily routine of Hindus in general and Srivaishnavas in particular. In this way the formula for describing the exact time in the eternal cycle has been passed on from generation to generation. This is what we call the "Sankalpam' before commencing any rituals. Preparation for Sankalpam Before we perform any Sankalpam for any auspicious ceremony, we need to verify the following:
  • Every day has a period of 1 1/2 hrs in a day called Muhurtham, which is a good time for performing auspicious activities.
  • We also need to avoid 2 periods every day called Rahu Kalam and Yema Gandam.
  • Coming back to the Sankalpam, we can now proceed to understand the various terms. We use the same basis, i.e., a year, but now work downwards, where a year is the lower limit till Prabavadi Shashti Samvatsaranam Madye, and upper limit subsequently.
Example Sankalpam:
SrI govinda govinda govinda!
asya SrI-bhagavata:
mahA purushasya vishNor AgjnayA
pravartamAnasya
aadhya brahmaNa:
Dviteeya parardhe: In the second half of Brahma’s life,i.e., the 51st year.
Svetavaraha Kalpe: In the Kalpa of Sveta Varaha
Vaivaswatha Manvantare: In the reign of Vaivaswatha
Manu
Ashta Vimsati me: within the 28th cycle, i.e, the 28th Mahayuga
Kali Yuge: In the Kali yuga
Prathame Pade: In the first quarter of this Yuga
Jambu Dweepe: India being part of Jambu Dweepam
Asmin Varthamane Vyavaharike: In the current running period
Prabavadi Shashti Samvatsaranam Madye:
Among the cycle of 60 years starting from Prabhava year
Nama Samvatsare: in the year named
Dakshinayane:
in the Southern of the Sun Vasantha Ritu: in the Vasantha season
Mesham Mase:
in the month of Mesham
Krishna Pakshe:
in the fortnight before
Amavasya
Navami Asyaam Punya Thithou: on this 9th holy day
Sthira Vasara uktayam: on the day of saturday
Ashiwini Nakshatra uktayam: the predominant star of the day
SrI-vishnu-yOga
, SrI-vishnu-karaNa

Subha-yOga, Subha-karaNa
Yevam guNa-viSeshaNa viSishTAyAm
asyAm
……AsyAm Subha-tithou
SrI-Bhagavad-AjnayA
Sri Bhagavat-kainkarya-roopam
......Karishye.

Then, the Sankalpa proceeds to introduce the actual ritual to be performed after which we can go ahead with whatever ritual or pooja was planned.
The details of each of the phrazes in the Sankalpam can be found here.

2 comments:

ashish said...

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Sudarsanan said...

vasanta ritu always comes in uttarayana and not dakshinayana. Example could have been little different