Sankalpam

(Disclaimer: Post contains lot of extinct language content, plus mythology details, plus mathematics. Bad enough combo to scare u off, and, don't blame me- you were warned! Of course, if you are the Tamil hero kind (who doesn't fear even TR movies, please go ahead!))

If you are from some other planet in some other time-space slice or in some other universe than mine,
I might have started this post with-
"Among all the universes I know (am not sure, cos humans don't even know if there are others!), during the time of existence of the present universe that was born 13.5+/-0.17 billion yrs, in the set of 65 million yrs when primates existed, in the 2.5 Million yrs that the homo species (And eventually man) evolved, in the 2010^th year after the birth of some homo sapien called Jesus Christ, on the 15th day in the month of March, I am writing this blogpost."

Of course, I don't write it cos i don't think people from other universes access my blogs. But then, if I were doing some telepathy thing to somebody in say, cigar galaxy (No… Seriously… I swear that's a REAL galaxy!) or maybe Sathya loka (that isn't really possible, but let's not go into details), I would do a similar procedure in my mind, to remind the person of my identity and my time etc, pretty much like how I check the time before calling someone up in Chicago.

Why all this now?

You see, I attended my cousin's upanayanam a few weeks back. And I had decided to sit and watch this procedure fully this time. Why? For one thing, the whole point of attending the function is to watch it happen, I think. (But about this in a future post.) For another, I had been too busy running around getting velli sombus and kolavathrams and darbai during my brother's upanayanam. And I was curious. (I still remember how I used to come to the poonal hall running with some plastic cover of sticks/twigs {don't remember what they call it} and hand it over to the vadyaar maama, when he would ask for more ghee or darbai or some such item and my mom would tell me "kitchen medaikku pakkathu shelfla red moodi potta dabbala irukku" {I tell you, my mom's kitchen directions are more data-dense than google maps; just that she doesn't code})

And there, I noticed how they do sankalpam for every small procedure they do.


"Sri  Bhagavadajnaya  Sriman  Narayana Prithyartham  XYZ_activity  Karishye" (where XYZ_acticity could be Sandhya vandhanam or argya pradhaanam or mantra japam or yajnopaveetham or even blog writing {dunno translation for this one :( })
Which essentially translates as-
By the divine (Vishnu's) order, I do XYZ_activity to become dear to Lord Vishnu.

Which reminded me of the long long sankalpam bro does during aavani avittam. He simply loves that one, mainly for the awesome timelines it has. So thought I must put it up. (it is interesting if you think it similar to telling your Chicago friend the IST before starting your conversation).

"hari: Om thath srigOvindha gOvindha gOvindha asya sri bhagavatha mahaa purushasya  Vishnoh Agnaya , Pravarthamanasya , Aadhya brhmanah  ,
dweethiya parardhe, shweta varaha kalpe, , Vaivaswatha manvanthare, ashta vimshathi thame, kali yuge, prathame padhe, Jamboo dweepe, Bharatha varshe , Bharatha Kande, Meroh dakshine parshwe, Shakabde  Asmin vartamane , vyaavaharike prabhavaadheenam sashtyah  samvatsaranaam madhye , Sarvajith nama samvatstare, Dakshinaayane, Varsha rithou, Simha mase, shukla pakshe, aadhya pournamasyam shubha tithou, Sowmya vasara yukthayam, shravana  nakshatra yukthayam, shubhayoga, shubha karana evam guna,  viseshana visishtaayam, asyam vartamanayam pournamaasyam  shubha thithou. 
Taishyaam pournamaasyam adhyayoth utsarjana akarana praayaschithartham , samvatsara praayaschithartham, ashtothara satha sankhyaka  kamo karisheeth  manyura karisheeth" ithi maha manthra japam karishye."

 And here is what it means--

Hari: Om --- aadhya brahmanah -(more salutations to more ppl)
dviteeya parardhe - in the 2nd half of Brahma's life
Svetavaraha kalpe - in the kalpa of Sveta-Varaha
Vaivaswatha manvantare - in the reining period of the current manu Vaivaswatha
Ashta Vimsati tame - in the 28th mahayuga of the current manavantara
Kaliyuge - in kali yuga
Prathame Padhe - in the first quarter of this yuga
Jamboodveepe - this denotes the place where the ritual is performed. India was known as Jambudveepa
Bharata Varshe, Bharata Kande - in the land of Bharat
Sakhabde Mero, Dakshine Parsve - to the South of the Meru mountain
Asmin Varthamane Vyavaharike - in the current period now reigning
Prabhavadi Shasti Samvatsaranam Madya - among the cycle of 60 years starting from Prabhava
Sarvajith Nama Samvatsare - the name of the year in the 60 year Hindu calendar
Dakshinayane - Dakshinayane (Aadi to Marghazi) or Uttarayane (Thai to Aani)**
Varsharitou - denotes the 6 seasons or Ritus - Vasantha, Greeshma, Varsha, Sharadh, Hemantha and Shishira
Meromase - one of the 12 Sanskrit months
Shuklapakshe - either Shukla Paksham (day after Amavasya till and including Pournami) or Krishna Paksham (day after Pournami till and including Amavasya)
Pournamasyam Subha Thithou - one of the 15 days between Pournami and Amavasya (Prathama, Dvithiya, Trithiya, Chaturthi, Panchami, Shasti, Saptami, Ashtami, Navami, Dasami, Ekadasi, Dwadashi, Trayodasi, Chaturdasi, Pournami or Amavasya
Soumyavasara Yuktayam - one of the days of the week (Bhanu, Soma, Bhowma, Soumya, Guru, Brugu and Sthira)
Sravana Nakshatra Yuktayam - the day's star or Nakshatram.
(The rest of it I am leaving out.)

 But here comes the interesting part.

The portion in red colour talks of a very long term calendar. (Beyond that is the date in the particular year)
Going from bottom to top, 1 yuga is 1,080,000 yrs. (1 million 80 thousand years). *
Every Mahayuga is the collection of 4 Yugas (Krita, Treta, Dwapara and Kali), which is 4,320,000 years (4 million 320 thousand). 1000 such Mahayugas is one day in the life of Brahma also known as a Kalpa (day as in 12 hours of daylight). And one day-night of Brahma is one Brahma day (as if that wasn't obvious… eh?!) which is 8 billion 640 million years. But, before we go on to Brahma's life, each Kalpa is itself divided into 14 manvantaras ** (Manvantara = Ruling period of one Manu-- implying that each Brahma day has 14 Manus ruling in succession).360 Brahma days constitute a Brahma year (3 trillion 110 billion 400 million yrs) while 100 years represent the lifetime of Brahma which is the life of the cosmos (i.e. 300,110,400,000,000 years- Now I am not reading that number out for you :P ok. 300 trillion odd)
(Of course, one Brahma's day is 8 billion odd years and astronomers have reached only 13billion yrs far!!!!)

We are presently in the Sveta-Varaha kalpa in the reigning period of Vaivaswatha - the 7th manu***. In this manvantara we are in the 28th mahayuga. As per our Cosmology, Brahma is supposed to have completed 50 Brahma years and is in his 51st year. That is why he is called "Parardha-dvaya-jivin" (ie) he lives for two parardhas. A parardha is half. Two halves make one. He is called so as he has completed one half of his tenure.

Now you know why we always saw Brahma with a grayish beard, don't you? ;)

 

* A year has only 31 million 856 thousand seconds! So quoting the age-old example, if you were to count one number a second ……
 **For each ruling Manu, there is a corresponding Indra. So unlike you thought Indra is not a single useless mythological character, but interestingly, a bunch of them!
 ***For people like me who are extra curious and want to know who the 14 Manus are- Swarochish Uttam Taamas Raivat Chaakshush Shraaddhdev Savarni Daksha Saavarni Brahma Saavarni Dharma Saavarni Rudraputra Saavarni Ruchi (Deva Saavarni) Bhaum (Indra Saavarni)
The 14 avataras of Manu are- (1) Yajna, (2) Vibhu, (3) Satyasena, (4) Hari, (5) Vaikuntha, (6) Ajita, (7) Vamana, (8) Sarvabhauma, (9) Rsabha, (10) Visvaksena, (11) Dharmasetu, (12) Sudhama, (13) Yogesvara and (14) Brhadbhanu. (Caitanya-caritamrta, Madhya Lila 20:246)
And the 14 corresponding Indras -- (1) Yajna (Avatar of Vishnu)  (2) Vipaschit  (3) Sushaanti (4) Shibi  (5) Vibhu  (6) Manojav (7) Purandar (the present Indra)  (8) Bali (9) Adbhut (10) Shanti (11) Vish (12) Ritudhaama  (13) Devaspati (14) Suchi

 (Thanks to 1. My bro who is forever talking about astronomy and mythology. 2. http://pratiwadi.blogspot.com/2009/04/sankalpam-detailed-explaination.html)