om  brhmahye namah......

SRaaDH`DH
THE ETERNAL AND EVERGREEN
EXPRESSION OF
CONTINUITY & GRATEFULNESS
IN CREATION

SRaaDH`DH Offering
 To A Woman

dharma-raajaa alias yam-dev (god of death who also metes out the fruits of one's kARm) explains in naarad puran slok 1.14.75-76, 80, 81 about SRaaDH`DH offering to a woman:

"An unmarried virgin is not treated as a separate in regard to piND (rice ball or lump of rice offered in SRaaDH`DH), gotra (family lineage) and suutak (impurity due to the birth of a child). A woman moves away from her original (birth) gotra when the mantras of marriage rites are recited (during vivaaH (marriage) ceremony). A woman is separated from the gotra of her (birth) family after the seventh step (in the spt-pDi viDHi) has been taken in her marriage ceremony.  After the marriage has taken place, on the night of the fourth day, she attains unity and identity with her husband in regards to piNda, gotra and suutak.

A girl obtains suutak, piND, and rites of bali or uphaar (libation) in accordance with what she obtains in the varna of her husband who marries her. (varna or division of humanity by their knowledge capacity and occupations in life are four: braahman, kshtriya, vaishya and sudra.).

tARpAN (water libation) and piND offering to a woman should be made in the name of the gotra of her husband.

uD`Dyshy (motive) in every piND at the time of offering piND in SRaaDH`DH should be an offering in the names of both (woman and her husband) and to the preceding six (generations of pairs of grandfather-grandmother, great grandfather-great grandmother and so on). Three piND should be offered (to each pair). Thus the person who offers the SRaaDH`DH doe not become deluded (by maayaa).

The mother (the woman)  is fed with her husband (who would be the father of the person performing SRaaDH`DH) along with devo. In the same way grand-mother, great-grandmother up to six preceding generations are fed along with their husbands in a SRaaDH`DH ceremony.

The ninth day of this SRaaDH`DH fortnight is called avidhvaa-navami when SRaaDH`DH offering is made to the aatmaa of women who have died before the death of their husbands. This avidhvaa-navami may also be called a widower's day on which the aatmaa of the departed wives is adored and remembered.....in tune with all the other family days we have in current times. If the widower has a second wife, then this second wife performs pranaan and namah to the departed wife and inwardly wishes that she may be also fortunate to die before her husband ...... "

(SRii chmpklaal Daajibhaai miisTRii, the compiler of the above GNaan, convey pranaam to our guru Dr. G. V. Tagore from whose English translation of the sanskrit naarad puraan we have been blessed with the above knowledge of  how SRaaDH`DH offering to our pitruo for the women folks and for fortune of having a progeny to continue our lineage.......the above slok are expanded with explanatory prose to make our learning and understanding easier...also explanatory prose in included in brackets to give backgrounder ved knowledge to provide supplementary explanation for increasing the depth of our knowledge of life sciences......  )

.......om namah brhmah....
....our guru brhmah..
.....om tat sat....om shaanti shaanti....

Posted: September 2002