Samayik And Chaityavandan Vidhi

Author(s): Manu Doshi
Publisher: Manu Doshi

Page 12

the unembodied state is termed as Ashariri. Similarly, Sädhu is also known as Muni. If we therefore replace the terms of Siddha and Sädhu by Ashariri and Muni, the first letters of the five entities turn out to be A, A, Ä, U and M. If these five characters are combined, the resulting composite letter is pronounced as Aum. Therefore Aum is considered equivalent to all the five entities.
But actually Aum has a higher significance. To understand it, one should turn to the source of sound. It is known that sound arises from the wind pipe. The sound coming straight from the pipe takes the form of vowels like A or Ä. When however throat, palates, teeth or lips interact with the sound, we can make the pronouncement of consonants. It can be seen that when the throat interacts with the sound, we can utter Ka, Kha, Ga etc.; if the tongue touches the soft palates, we can utter Cha, Chha, Ja, etc. if it touches the hard palates, we can utter Ta, Tha, Da. etc.; if the tongue touches the teeth, we can utter the softer versions of those very consonants and if the lips come together, while uttering, we can utter Pa, Pha, Ba, etc.
Now Aum is made up of A, U and M. If we watch how it is uttered, it will be seen that A is uttered straight from the throat; while uttering U, the air coming from the wind pipe has to touch the throat, the palates as well as the teeth; and M is uttered by bringing together both the lips. Thus Aum can be recited by interacting with all the places of utterance. In other words, Aum is symbolic of everything that can be uttered. As such, it obviously covers the five supreme entities.
There is therefore no harm in prefixing Aum to Navkärmantra, if one wants to do that. While reciting it, however, it should be remembered that it is prefixed to all the five lines offering obeisance. What the people generally do is to prefix it to the first four lines and recite the fifth line without Aum. This is being done on the ground that there being too many characters in the fifth line, it is hard to sing it with Aum.
It should, however, be born in mind that Mantras are not meant for singing. They are to be properly pronounced. For making anything worth singing, the composition needs to have more or less equal characters. Characters in Navakärmantra range from 5 to 9. That range itself renders it unsingable. Due to that very fact, no one ever sings Gayatri Mantra, which is the most well known Mantra in India.
Moreover, the people singing Navkärmantra have to sing two lines together. Since this Namaskär is to be offered to five entities, there are only five lines for the purpose. The remaining part is the versified Chulika that lays downs the benefits to be derived from Namaskär. That verse is constituted of two lines. The first line states that the five fold obeisance eradicates all sins and the second line states that it is the foremost among all blissful aspects. The verse thus stands separately by itself and is amenable to singing.
Since most of the people are used to sing Navkärmantra, they split the two lines of the verse in four parts and treat the Mantra as consisting of nine lines. Thus the fifth line of obeisance happens to be joined with the half of the first line of Chulika. Thereafter they