[Advaita-l] NakhShatreShTi homam

[Anand Hudli]

Some additional information. The nakShatreShTi homa is also dealt with in 
the BaudhAyana shrauta sUtra, prashna 28, in the text beginning with "athAto 
nakShatreShTIrvyAkhyAsyAmaH..."

agnirvA akAmayatAnnAdo devAnAM syAmiti tA brAhmaNena vyAkhyAtAH

These (nakShatreShTi's) have been explained in the (taittirIya) brAhmaNa 
(with the text)   "Agni verily desired - "May I become the eater of food 
among the gods."  Taitt. Br. (3.1.4-6)

BaudhyAna further says "yAvajjIvaM tryavarArdhyo vA prayogaH" which means 
the iShTi's should be performed as long as one lives or (at least) three 
times.

The archetype for all iShTi's are the darsha-pUrNamAsa. Such being the case, 
the shrauta sUtra gives details of deities and offerings specific to the 
nakShatreShTi. For example, the deities in the AshreShA nakShatra iShTi are 
the sarpas and AshreShA. The oblation, as per BaushAyana shrauta sUtra, is 
"Ajye karaMbhaM" or parched barley in ghee. As another example, the deities 
in the shravaNa nakShatra iShTi are ViShNu and shroNA (shravaNa). The 
oblation is "puroDAshaM trikapAlamiti", a cake (of rice or barley flour) 
baked on three potsherds (kapAlas) that are placed on embers.

Anand

PS: I would have replied earlier, had I not gone on vacation. I had earlier 
planned to leave for Pondicherry en route to Chidambaram on Dec 25. Since I 
thought it would be nice to observe Dattatreya jayanti in Bangalore on the 
Dec 26th, I postponed my trip by a day. Hearing about the tsunami tragedy on 
the morning of the 26th, I did my Dattatreya puja feeling fortunate for 
myself and my family but sorry for the people who were not so fortunate. I 
had to cancel my trip to TN and made a trip instead to Dharmasthala 
(Manjunatha temple), Kukke Subrahmanya, and the famous temple of Krishna at 
Udipi.