Happy Ram Navami - 2022

Namaste Jesus

Namaste Jesus

Praise the Lord and Enjoy the Chai
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Cino said:
How is Lord Rama's birtday celebrated in your family, @Namaste Jesus?
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No meat of any kind for 9 days prior, just traditional vegetarian Indian fare. Daily puja with offerings of fruit, Indian treats, milk and flowers, burning of incense and such. Day of, Ram Navami, everything gets cleaned and tidied up, in and around our Mandir in preparation for that evenings puja.
 
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Do you get visitors for the puja? Does the ceremony involve chanting bhajans or retelling of the Epic?
 
Cino said:
Do you get visitors for the puja? Does the ceremony involve chanting bhajans or retelling of the Epic?
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Not this year no, just the wife and I. In more formal settings and larger gatherings, bhajans and recitation does take place, but I'm not versed enough to conduct the proceedings myself. We generally just listen to recorded bhajans.

Funny story: We were in Fiji one year during Ram Navami. This one night they were conducting services at home, singing bhajans and reading from the Ramayana. Well the Pandit, who was supposed to read that nights passage, was unexpectedly called away. So, they hand me his book. Now, there's only two people in the entire village that can read Sanskrit and I ain't one of them! Somehow they thought that since I had been assisting the Pandit, I could also read the text. Luckily the other fellow, beside the Pandit who could read Sanskrit, happened to be in attendance, and came to my rescue! :D
 
Whew! I can imagine your relief!

Intetesting parallels to scripture reading in church and synagogue come to mind. At least in the former case, the text is in translation, and in the latter, people get to learn the passage beforehand...
 
Oh, many translations of the Ramayana are available, Hindi, English and so forth, but Hindus, at least in my wife's tradition, don't use scripture the same way members of western faiths do. That's something left up to their spiritual leaders to read and understand. So that night the only copy of the Ramayana available was the Sanskrit version the Pandit had brought with him. No one else had one. The odd part is, just about everyone there knew the story by heart having heard it so many times.

I must confess, though I now have an English translation, I've not read it either. I know the gist of it from assisting the Pandit, so I just help the wife get everything ready, then I pray my way and she prays hers.
 
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