Offering Anjali To Maa Durga During Puja

Offering Anjali To Maa Durga During Puja

The Durga pujas are round the corner and it is a time when you can benefit a lot by worshiping the Mother Divine. So let us find out how to offer Anjali to Maa Durga during the festivals. Normally this practice is more common in eastern parts of India especially West Bengal though it is useful for other regions too.

Durga Puja Dates 2015

Durga puja 2015 starts on 18 October 2015 and it will be on till 22 October 2015. This festival is celebrated in the last five days of the Navratri. We will now in this article discuss in details one of the most significant aspect of the festival namely the concept of offering anjali to the Goddess Durga.

Apart from the above the other dates which are associated with worship of other forms of Divine Mother are as follows:

Durga Puja 2015 Dates

The Pious Days

The five days of the Durga Puja is significant. You must also note the point that sometimes the goal is the same but paths are different. For example during Navratris people normally keep fast for nine days and eat simple things like Sabudana dish while Durga Puja is time to celebrate, enjoy, eat and have a blast.

Each morning of these five days the Bengalis ensure that they take a shower and wear new clothes. Then they go to the pandal where the Durga puja is being organised and they offer anjali. Till the time they give anjali they do not have any food. The prasad is the first bite of food that the Bengalis have after giving anjali.

The Concept of Offering Anjali

If you happen to visit a Durga puja pandal during the Pujas you will see a number of Bengalis offering anjali to the Goddess. The anjali on the day of Maha Ashtami is considered to be the most important of all. All men, women and children ensure that they give anjali at least on Maha Ashtami if not on the other days.

The priest hands over flowers and a bel patra (this is optional) to all. Each of those who have come to give anjali repeats the mantras that are told by the priest. Once the mantra is pronounced the flowers are thrown to the feet of the Goddess Durga. This is done three times continuously. The anjali is common on all the five days. We have mentioned about Sandhi puja that happens when Astami ends and Navami starts. Even during Sandhi Puja anjali is arranged for the devotees. If you want to give anjali in sandhi puja you have to be fasting till late in the night.

The Goddess Durga is worshipped by a Bengali Brahmin priest. He offers all the prayers and does the rituals. The devotees are a part of the worship only when the anjali happens. Durga puja is complex and needs a lot of preparations this is exactly why it is either done at home normally by the affluent families who can afford all the arrangements individually or people make a community and then do the puja. However despite the outward material preparations if you are doing the prayers with sincere devotion, the results are the same irrespective of the grandeur with which you do it.

Durga Puja Community Anjali

Durga Puja Community Anjali

The Preparations for Offering Anjali

When you offer anjali you must ensure that the flowers used are fresh. Wash your hands as you take the flower to do the anjali. Also ensure that the flower reaches the feet of the Goddess. If you throw it in some other place or stamp it then you may invite ill luck. When you offer the anjali you must not ask for anything in return. You can pray separately but during anjali asking something can be very wrong as per the Bengali traditions. Your mind should be focused only on the Goddess and the mantras that we will be discussing in the next section.

In most of the Durga pujas today looking at the large number of devotees the flowers to be offered are collected in a basket and then dropped at the feet of the Goddess. As per the traditions each time fresh flowers were distributed. However looking at the large gatherings that we have today at the Durga pujas the flowers are given only once and the devotees finish the three rounds of anjali after that they give the flowers to be taken to the Goddess. This is absolutely fine and you must follow the rules.

First Round of Anjali

We are enclosing the mantra for the anjali in English so that you can get it right even if you do not follow what the priest is saying. This is for the first round of anjali:

Anjali Mantra 1

After this you are supposed to offer the flowers.

These lines if explained would mean something like this. We bow to Maa Durga and seek her blessings. We tell her that she is the all powerful and we are offering the anjali with all our love and dedication.

Second Round of Anjali.

The mantra for the second phase is as follows:

Anjali Mantra 2

After this just offer the flowers and wait for the  third round of anjali.

If you translate this mantra what it basically means is that we ask the Goddess for a long and happy life. We tell her that the flowers that we are giving in the form of anjali are an         offering to her. She should accept it. We salute to her as she is the mother of all.

Third Round Mantras

Anjali Mantra 3

In this mantra you are just praising the Goddess.  The first few are the various names of the Goddess. You tell the  Goddess that she is the power that created the universe and whatever we see now. She also has the power to destroy everything. We accept her for all her powers and qualities. We salute to her as she is wealth, knowledge, faith and growth.

Timings for 2015

The timings for various occasions this year are as follows:

Ashtami Tithi starts at 14:23 on 20 October 15
Ashtami Tithi ends at 13:29 on 21 October 15

Author’s Note:

1. As we have been doing in the past, a few words I would like to mention about the above practice. First though we have mainly mentioned this ritual as being Bengali, there is nothing which stops any other person doing this if he/she does so and that fact is just mentioned to highlight that it is more popular in a particular community

2. Many people ask us that the meaning of the mantras is praising Goddess Durga and why is it so. Basically the Supreme Divine Mother does not require praise from us, it is just that the mantras are made so for the benefit of the sadhaks or the devotees only to arouse their inner faculties. Mantras are proper science and they were formed by the ancient seers based on the power of sound energy as we have discussed in another article in details.

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