Thursday, September 17, 2009

Blindness & leprosy and Sun worship



Useful links related to this topic.

Diseases caused by Purva Janma karma


"Surya shatakam" is a devotional poem by Mayura, a popular Sanskrit Poet of 6th Century AD, a contemporary of the Great poet Bana, the founder of Prose poetry Kadambari in Sanskrit.

Legend about the episode that led him to the composition of hundred verses is this. Bana was the Court Poet of Harsha Vardhana and Mayura was his father-in-law. Mayura was invited by the King to his kingdom and he was accommodated in a mansion opposite to that of Bana, his son-in-law, which he didn't know.

At the day break, Mayura woke up to perform his daily rites and went up to the terrace to have fresh air. He saw a young lady coming out of her bed room and immediately the poet heart inside Mayura woke up and composed several erotic shloka-s describing the beautiful young lady in that state.

After the day break, he came to know that it was his own daughter. By that time, Bana also had noticed this incident. Both cursed each other. Bana cursed him to get hold of leprosy and Mayura also cursed him in the same way.

Thereafter, each composed a hundreds of shloka-s "sataka"-s. Bana composed Chandishatakam and Mayura, this Surya Shatakam.

Mayura, repenting on describing the erotic state of his own daughter, decided to perform prayaschitta himself. He set a piled wood and set fire and tied a swing above it sitting on which he composed these hundred verses. At the end of the composition of the last verse, the swing (uri) made of rope burnt completely and he was rescued by the Sun God himself from falling into the fire below. Thus he was relieved of the curse of leprosy and also the sin of describing his own daughter.

On reading this I am reminded of a work called Vaidya Chinthamani.
Ayurvedins must study this.
This is part of astrology too
It tells the connection between diseases and karmas.
I find a connection in the above episode


If a person looks at another woman with passion - he will be born blind - depending on the level of passion and the state of the woman, say, if the woman is his own daughter or daughter in law or the wife of teacher and so on.
Here Mayura looks at his won daughter with some passion - not knowing that she is his daughter.
That would result him in getting the wrath of Sun god who is the signifactor for sight. So he sings the hymns on Sun for relief from the wrath – however done unknowingly. Even though what he did was only composing a poem, the underlying emotion of passion at another woman causes a bad karma.

There is another angle that if a person has intercourse with a woman with whom he must not - say with the wife of the teacher or with daughter-in-law or with daughter etc
the person will get leprosy according to this text.


Though Mayura didn't commit that blunder on her, he did look at her with such an intention and sang songs depicting such passion.
So he is bound to get leprosy. This, spelt as a curse by Bana is actually what is bound to arise if one does such an act.

The parihara for that is sun worship and doing Kushmanda homa.

Kushmanda homa is prescribed by Prasna Marga as parihara for leucoderma.
Any unknown disease of the skin (causative Ketu) can be cured by Kushmanda homa.
The Kushmanda homa is derived from Yajur veda sooktham.

Kushmanda in Sanskrit means Pumpkin.
Pumpkin has properties to arrest eye problems and blindness. It supplies nutrients to body that help in arresting cancer, heart problems, cataract and aging. It plays a vital role in growth, development and immunity. It must also be recalled that any homa or auspicious karma is completed with the Drishti poosani – the haarathi taken with the pumpkin which will be broken in the street. By this it is known that Kushmanda or pumpkin has the supreme property of warding off all evils.


Kushmanda is the name of the fourth form of Durga. It is a very ugra form of Shakti. By worship of Kushmanda, all diseases get destroyed. Any kind of obstacles that are yet to come will get obliterated. People, who suffer from any kind of Shaap or curse of previous births, can worship Kushmanda to remove those problems.

The insight from the episode of Mayura is that there is no use in doing many pariharas at random. There are many types of parihara for each God or planet. Each of them will have a specific purpose. One must do only that parihara meant for a specific ailment or problem if one were to get maximum benefits.


Surya shatakam is good remedy for Eye sight problems.
There are many ways of worship of Sun.

From astro texts and the advice of the rishis, I can say that
Vishnu sahasranama and Adithya hrudayam are the best ones to worship
sun
or Narayana
or Vishnu
or Surya Narayana.


The very best mantra for any ailment or problem is reciting
"Achuthananda Govinda naamOcchaaraNa bhEshajaath/
Nashyanthi sakalaa rOgaa satyam satyam vadaamyaham//"

-->

Related post:-

Diseases caused by poorva janma karma.



5 comments:

Sujata Srinath said...

You say Kushmanda is Pumpkin. But during homas usually Ash Gourds are used. Are pumpkins also used?

Jayasree Saranathan said...

@ Sujata Srinath,

Kushmanda in Sanskrit refers to Pumpkin. It is yellow variety. Ashgourd is white variety. In Tamil Pumpkin is known as 'Manjal Poosani-k-kaai'. I think both are acceptable, depending on the availability in a place.

Unknown said...

Kushmanda homa is related to ahutis given by chanting Kushmanda mantras. Vatarashanas are the mantra dhrastaras of that mantra and has nothing to do with pumpkin.ЁЯША

Jayasree Saranathan said...

@Unknown,

Read properly the article before commenting.

Unknown said...

Pumpkin has got nothing to do with Kushmanda. Kushmanda is a mantra samuha where the great Vatarashanas to test other rishis who wanted to ask about forgiveness for all types of sins. Being not able to see them the group of rishis pray them with bhakti. Happy by that act of rishis they appear in front of the rishis and when asked for gives the "Kushmanda" mantras as a prayaschitta for all the sins. So, Kushmanda is a mantra samuha and ahutis with that mantras can be given by tila or just ghrita. There are rules based on the depth of the karmas as described by Bhagawan Bodhayana.