Navaratri - Day 6 - Drishti Durga
October 5, 2008
Although in a larger sense the last 3 days of Navaratri are for Saraswati, in the Navadurga ritual that we are performing, day 6 additionally belongs to Drishti Durga. Literally “drishti” means glance and in this sense, it is referring to those who may wish us less than well…their glance being the “evil eye”. So this Durga protects us from the bad wishes of others.
There are two special ingredients for this yagya today; yellow mustard seed which is offered every day, and guggulu, which is the pitch from a particular evergreen tree. This is also a powerful ayurvedic medicine used to balance the dosas when they are severely out of balance.
As you might expect coming from a tree, it is highly flammable and quite fragrant. It burns immediately and sends up great smoke, adding a bit of drama to the fire portion of the yagya.
This shot is looking down on the small murits after they have been bathed in fresh sandalwood. Every morning one of the younger priests has grinding sandalwood duty, a process that takes about 1/2 hour to grind enough for the abishekam. It is hard work!
Since we are doing “Nava Durga Yagya”, each of the nine forms of Durga have to be invited and “installed” in the puja each day in a process call “Avahanam”. This takes about 2 hours each day. Above you see the pomegranates that were offered today, one for each of the Navadurga. The great part is that after the pujas conclude one of the priests makes them into fresh juice which is consumed during the next break. It is fantastically delicious.
Today’s little girl was fascinated at the pujas, but had no idea why everyone was paying so much attention to her.
On the roof waiting for the homam to begin, the day looks beautiful even though it is over 90 F with humidity in the same range. I must be getting used to the weather because it seems like a beautiful day with the main tower of the big Vishnu temple in the distance.
The mantra today was quite long and the 1008 offerings took much longer to complete, but no one seemed to mind.
No monkeys today. In the evening after Lalitha Sahasranam, we visited a nearby Hanuma temple where the murti was about 25 feet tall. All the offerings of flowers and fruit are placed on his feet because that is all you can reach.
Then we stopped at a nice old Shiva temple where an older woman was teaching a young man (possible her son) to recite some slokas for Lakshmi. She kept correcting him as he read from a book, and she clearly knew the text perfectly from memory. It was nice to see this kind of knowledge being passed on in this way. On the way back to the hotel we pass a number of smaller temples and they are crowded with people and resplendent with fresh flower decorations. Navaratri is a big festival and people seem to really enjoy it as well as take it pretty seriously. Sadly there are only 3 days left!