[Advaita-l] ganesha chaturthi

[M. S. Ravisankar]

In the US, tomorrow (Sat, Aug 30th) is ganesha chaturthi. In India it is on
Sunday (31st). See Anand Hudli's beautiful post on this subject.
 http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m489.html. Aarathi Sankaran, who is
one of the members of this list, sent me her composition on Sri ganesha. You
can see this stotra at http://www.ambaa.org/download/ and file name is
Aarathi_Ganesa.doc (you will need sanskrit98 fonts).

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Ganesha chaturthi is celebrated on  bhaadrapaada shukla paxa chaturthi.
There are very specific rules on how this day is determined.

chaturthi gaNanaathasya mAtR^ividdha prashasyate
madhyahnavyaapinii chet-syAt-paratashchatparahani


1) It is more auspicious to celebrate on the tithi which has chaturthi
during madhyAhna kaalam and also has tritiya as puurva viddha (that is which
has sambandham with tritiya).

2) The key is chaturthi should have madhyanha vyaapta.

3) #2 can occur in 6 different ways of

a) chaturthi happening during madhyAhna of 1st day.
b) chaturthi happening during madhyAhna of 2nd day.
c) chaturthi happening equally during madhyAhna of both days.
d) chaturthi not happening during madhyAhna either of the days
e) chaturthi happening unequally during madhyAhna of both days
f) chaturthi happening with very little connection during madhyAhna of both
days.


For a,c,f based #1, it is better to celebrate on tithi which has tritiya
connection.

For #d, it should be celebrated on tritiya

For #e, it is better to pick the day which has the tithi with longer
madhyAhna vyApti

For #b, obviously the day which has chaturthi during madhyAhna should be
considered. (which is also the case for #a as only one day has chaturthi)


vaidyanAtha diixitiyam, discusses these matters in detail under the section
tithi nirNaya prakaraNam. All the above is from the book (in Tamil) called
samxepa dharma shaastram, which a condensed or abrdiged edition of those
books.


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The day before Ganesha chaturthi is observed as swarNa gauri vrata.  kanya-s
observe this for getting good husband, married woman observe this for
pAtivratyam and long life for their husband. For men, it will increase guru
bhakti.

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Ravi