Thursday, December 31, 2009

तदेव लग्नं

तदेव लग्नं सुदिनं तदेव , ताराबलं चन्द्रबलं तदेव, विद्याबलं दैवबलं तदेव, लक्ष्मिपते तेङ्ग्रियुगं स्मरामि 


This is the shloka that is spoken at almost each religious custom. What it means [crudely] is:
'It is the sacred moment, it is a good day, it has all the power of the moon and the stars [astrological], it has all the power of knowledge and fate when i think of your feet, oh lord Vishnu'


So by saying this we proclaim that we are investing all the power of stars, the moon, knowledge and fate at the sacred moment. And whatever we will start at this moment will have the power with it. This is said in a wedding, in a 'munj' and in a 'vastushant' and every such ceremony.


I became fascinated with this shloka during my cousin's wedding. The reason i became fascinated with it because i liked the tone of finality associated with it. It strongly asserts that as of this moment, every material power is with us, and the only thing required now is for us to use our will power and make right whatever we are embarking upon. 


In a wedding, it asserts to the bride and the groom that 'now that you have all of the power invested in you, it is up to you two and only you two to make the wedding succesful'.
In a munj it tells the munja that 'now that you have all of the power invested in you, it is up to you and only you to make sure that you successfully complete your education in your 'brahmacharyashram' and be ready to enter 'gruhasthashram''.


So i guess what it says is that it is up to us to make our journey successful assuming that every material power is with us. It also tells us a strange thing - that we dont need a sacred moment to embark upon something - we make this moment sacred by chanting this shloka. The reason this is strange is because we always find the exact sacred moment - muhurta - for a wedding / munj etc.


This is brings me back to my new years post of 2007 - that why we need a special day. It is a motivation thing - i think finding an appropriate 'muhurta' is for making the moment special - for motivating us to start whatever we want to start. This shloka makes the muhurta redundant by proclaiming that we make whatever moment we want into a muhurta. And that is why this one fascinates me.


This tells me that we shouldn't rely on stellar support - shouldn't rely on fate to do anything. We must assume that while travelling on the road ahead, we have full support of these things - stars and moon, knowledge and fate - and that the rest in only in our hands. And if anything goes wrong - we must bear the responsibility of it - because its only because our own doing and not the fault of stars.


I have always said this while giving advice to people and tried to follow it myself - in a  situation, all we can worry about are the things that are in our control - the rest, which is beyond our control,  we should not worry about because there is not a thing we can do about it. This shloka tell me exactly that.


I have been pondering over this for a while - the powerful message which the shloka delivers. So i choose this moment to publish my thoughts and hope that they enlighten me and others. 


तदेव लग्नं सुदिनं तदेव , ताराबलं चन्द्रबलं तदेव, विद्याबलं दैवबलं तदेव, लक्ष्मिपते तेङ्ग्रियुगं स्मरामि

2 comments:

Ashwin Kelkar said...

good interpretation.. though it turns out that the sholka has 2 faces.. don't you think ?
it says this moment is auspicious yet in practice it is assumed that we have plotted and planned to find an auspicious moment to say this shloka..
actually I think the more important part of this is when they say "savadhaan" it means attention. we are telling everyone to pay attention so that they know that in this moment when all the heavenly bodies are beneficial, we are performing this ceremony. (whatever it may be ).
on the other hand.. what you say is prefect as well.. this is the moment.. go ahead.. leap.. and one are still saying " savadhaan" so one is announcing their choice and then taking the leap..
nice one..

Unknown said...

hmm.. nice.. it reminds me of Dale Carnegie's saying..
For every ailment under the sun, There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one, try to find it; if there be none, never mind it."