[Advaita-l] Mudras in Vedas

[Krishnan S]

Namskarams.

 There was a thread on “Mudras & Gayatri Japam’ last month. In that
connection, I want to submit the following two references

1.    The first one is a very old Tamil book, titled ‘Sandhyavandanam’, by
the celebrated Srivasta Somadeva Sarma. Word by word explanations of all
the mantras are given. In the ‘avataarika’ section, the author mentions
that to realize the ‘mantra siddhi’ of Gayatri Mantra, one is to perform
“puracharaNam’. For details of this karma, he alludes to the Chapter 21 of
the 11th Skandam of Devi Bhaagavatam (as referred to by Sri. Venkata Sriram
in his mail). And in the appendix, he mentions that before Japam, one is to
do ‘Buudha Sudhi’, ‘avaahanam’, ‘nyaasam’, ‘mudra’, ‘Gayatri hridayam’,
 ‘kavacham’, ‘stotram’ and ‘capa vimocanam’. He then provides a table
listing the 24 mudras, one against each akshara of the mantra along with
other attributes like Rishi, Chandas, Devata, ..etc.,.

The book does NOT have any figures of these 24 mudras

Also there is NO mention about the other 8 (post-japa) mudras.

2.    The second is a book “NityabrahmoopaasanasamuccyaH” (detailing the
Nitya Anushtna Karmas of Sukla Yajur Veda Brahmins) published by Maharshi
Gautuma Godavari Vedavidya Prathishtaan of Nasik, (www.vedasgurukul.org.in).
 In that book, figures of the (24+8) 32 mudras are displayed and it
mentions (again as  mentioned by Sri Venkata Sriram)  to show the 24 mudras
before the japam and 8 after the japam

     Incidentally this book was released in Dec 2011 in Mumbai, when the
local Sankara Mutt conferred their annual ‘Sri Adi Sankara Puruskar’ on
BrSri. Mani Dravid Sastrigal, in the presence of Kanchi Sri Acharya.


Krishnan

---------

>>>Namaste,



>>>Devi Bhagavata (gAyatri upAsana khaNDa) do mention about these 32 mudrAs.

>>>24 mudrAs are displayed before the commencement of gAyatri japa and

>>>8 are displayed after the japa.  So, total 32 in mudrAs which have

>>>esoteric signifance.



>>>sriram