The Secret Principles of Puja

THE SECRET PRINCIPLES OF PUJA

NARAYANAN CHITTOOR NAMBOODIRIPAD

THE SECRET PRINCIPLES OF PUJA

Kerala has very ancient temples and elaborate, symbolic rituals that enhance the beneficent Chaithanya. Ancient Agama Granthas like Prapanchasaram and Saradathilakam gave precise instructions but usually the priests learned everything by heart and rarely used manuscripts. Chennas Namboodiripad compiled these rituals and wrote Thanthra Samuchaya which has become the supreme authority on these rites. Even though these tell us what to do they do not tell us why? Perhaps it was difficult for them to give the rationale since they had to make the manuscripts very brief. Some of the scholars learned them through experience. Narayanan Chittoor Namboodiripad gives an insight into the symbolism of these rituals. This book shows how the temple rites were fashioned out of Vedic rites through symbolism. It shows how Dualism transcends beyond limiting factors to become the Advaitha philosophy of Jagadguru Sankaracharya.

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Copyright © 2015 Narayanan Chittoor Namboodiripad

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DEDICATED TO

My Wife

Savithry Narayanan

Who leads me on…

Table of Contents

Preface

Section 1 : The General Principles of Puja

Section 2 : The Puja Rituals

Appendix I: Narayanan’s Manasa Puja

Appendix II

About the Author

PREFACE

Legend says that Kaippilly Sankaran Namboodiri whom the world knows as Jagadguru Sankaracharya fashioned the Puja rituals that the Namboodiris of Kerala perform in the temples. Of course, we had great ancient temples and unbelievably elaborate and symbolic rites even before Sankaracharya. We believe that Sankara’s father worshipped at the ancient Vadakkumnathan temple of Thrissur and Lord Sankara, the presiding deity took birth as Sankaracharya. Perhaps the great Acharya made significant changes in the Puja rites; we do not know.

We have centuries old Agama Granthas that deal with Manthras and rituals like Manthrasaram, Yanthrasaram, Prapanchasaram and Saradathilakam. The Acharyas of the temples learned everything by heart from their Gurus. They had reference Granthas but those were painstakingly written on palm leaves, a difficult prospect. Since most of them were real experts who had learned one of the Vedas by heart, the need for written Granthas was rare. But Chennas Namboodiripad, a scholar in the court of Manavedan Raja, the Zamorin of Calicut compiled and wrote the famous book called Thanthra Samuchayam which gave all the protracted temple rituals in a concise form; in verse. He did not choreograph the rites, he just compiled them. Now we have the printing press and a few commentaries on this book written in Malayalam. The Acharyas consider Samuchayam the ultimate authority.

One of my acquaintances wrote a book in which he viciously criticized temple worship. I tried to give him the real principles and found that he did not want to know; he just wanted to ridicule our sublime rituals. He never entered any temple and even if he had seen the rituals would not have understood the symbolic ideas. But when a Namboodiri who should have known better started criticizing the rites, I was angry. To make it worse, he started quoting foreign authors who are never allowed inside the temples of Kerala; that was when I decided to write this small book.

I have been part of the temple scene for almost seven decades. Chittoor Namboodiripads had hereditary rights in about thirty temples; some of them we owned and others we controlled as hereditary administrators. For example, Kerala had thirty two ancient settlements and thirty two settlement temples which controlled the cultural and economic life for centuries. Among these four temples dominated the spiritual and material affairs – Panniyoor, Perinchellur, Peruvanam and Sukapuram temples. We used to administer two of these and Peruvanam we owned as Uralans. We had such rights even in the temple of Guruvayoor which is the second richest temple of India. Of course, those days are gone and the Devaswom Boards controlled by the Government or local committees of devotees rule most of these temples. But when they celebrate Naveekarana Kalasam or Mahakumbhabhisheka, meaning renovation rituals spanning ten days, the astrologers insist that I should act as Yajamana. This concept of Yajamana is rather difficult to follow. He acts as the representative and spokesperson of the deity, authorize the Acharya to perform the rituals, pays for the services of the priests and makes important decisions. I had to do these things in many temples and was forced to learn the principles of the rites so that I could make the correct decisions. I myself had to perform few rituals, the paid Acharyas did that; yet I had to know the rationale of what they did. I was lucky to have a large number of scholars as my friends to learn the basic principles. An interesting fact is, we never accept any payment for acting as the Yajamana.

KPC Narayanan Bhattathiripad, the great Acharya who is the Kulapathy of the Thanthra Vidya Peedham taught me the Puja. Most of the Acharyas consider the Thanthra Samuchayam as the ultimate authority even though there are minor, very minor, differences between various traditions. My Puja belongs to the tradition of Padinjaredath Mana. The present custodians of this tradition, KPC Vishnu Bhattathiripad and KP Unni Bhattathiripad have become famous. The basic rationale of all the traditions are the same.

The texts like Thanthra Samuchayam tells us what to do in detail but not why. The ancient masters had to make their Granthas as small as possible and the students learned directly from the teachers without the aid of the written word. The present Acharyas also follow the same method; they teach the rites but not the rationale. The student is expected to realize those through years of experience. I write this book on the principles and symbolism because I have learned them from my scholarly friends and through my own logical deductions. I cannot be sure of how much others have contributed, but a large part of this book comes out of my own reasoning. Here I give the principles only; those who are interested in the intricate rites will have to learn them from a scholarly Acharya.

I describe the principles of our short Puja which is usually the daily Puja of a temple. We have what we call a big Puja but only a rich temple like that of Guruvayoor which has a large staff can have it everyday. We have even longer versions of this big Puja performed during special occasions. I am afraid, those are so complicated and long –drawn that the readers might not be able to follow them. As pointed out before those who want to study them have to approach an experienced Acharya. I must explain that the ancient masters always performed the big Puja; the short one is an abridged version.

Narayanan C Namboodiripad

SECTION 1: THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF PUJA

Jagadguru Sankaracharya, the uncompromising exponent of Vedas and Vedantic philosophy, himself fashioned the Kerala style Puja or daily worship in the temples. We do have authoritative texts that explain the Manthras and rituals that are used in the temples; the Jagadguru himself wrote one of them – the Prapanchasara. Some of the temple rites are very elaborate, spanning days even. The Puja can also be very time consuming but ordinary temples employing one or two priests cannot do three or five Pujas every day as also attend to various duties like preparing the offerings. The famous golden temple of Guruvayur has a ‘large’ Puja everyday; it has a large staff to make it possible. So Puja usually means the short one, but then that also is time consuming. Ignorant critics often brand Puja as a kind of non-Aryan, non-Vedic ritual, but Sankaracharya, the master of Advaitha philosophy who travelled all over India to establish the sublime truth of Vedic thought could not have approved of a style of worship that went against the Vedic principles. Critics might argue that we do not have unassailable evidence that Sankaracharya himself created the Puja, but he certainly supported the Kerala system; we know it for sure. He ordered that the chief priest of the great Badrinath temple in the Himalayas should be a Namboodiri from the southern state of Kerala. Legend has it that many of the temples, especially belonging to the non-Namboodiris used to have certain evil practices like offering alcoholic spirits and chicken and the Jagadguru stopped it in several temples twelve centuries ago to introduce the present style of worship. The Puja is so stylized and symbolic in nature that the uninitiated might consider it non-Vedic; full of short Manthras and hand gestures. Most people are unable to