Maha Shivaratri
at the
Hindu Temple of New Hampshire

 à¤µà¤¿à¤¦à¥à¤¯à¤¾à¤¸à¥ श्रुतिरुत्क्रुष्टा रुद्रैकादशिनी श्रुतौ |
vidyaasu shrutikruShTaa rudraikaadashinee shrutau
तत्र पञ्चाक्षरी तयं शिव इत्यक्षरद्वयं ||
tatra panchaaksharee tayam shiva ityakSharadvayam

among all sources of knowledge, the vedas are supreme,
in the vedas, rudra ekadashinee is supreme;
in the rudram the five syllable mantra ‘na-ma-shi-vaa-ya’ is supreme;
In the namashivaaya mantra the two syllables â€˜shi-vaa’ stand supreme.

The Hindu Temple of New Hampshire, Nashua, NH, held a grand celebration of the festival of Maha Shivaratri on the night of Tuesday, February 13, 2018. The celebration marked by 4 kaalaah or cycles of rudraabhishekam (ritual ablution of the Shiva Linga enshrined in the Temple) accompanied by ekaadasha rudram (the chanting of the revered shree rudram 11 times) started early in the evening and continued through the night till 5 AM the next morning. The celebration attracted a crowd of over 200 devotees, several of whom stayed through the night. In addition to the chanting of the Sanskrit shree rudram, a group of devotees also chanted the Tamil tirumurai.

MAHA SHIVARATRI

Maha Shivaratri is an annual Hindu festival that is celebrated all over the world with great fervor in Temples where Lord Shiva is enshrined. Lord Shiva is enshrined in multiple forms at the Hindu Temple of New Hampshire – as Sri Meenakshi Sundareswara, as Narmada Lingam, as Sri Medha Dakshninamurthy (Lord Shiva in the form of the divine teacher who imparts the ultimate wisdom through silence) and Sri Kanchi Paramacharya (who many devotees consider to be an incarnation of Lord Shiva). The Temple which is completing its 10^th year of service to the devotee community in Greater Boston has been celebrating the festival of Maha Shivaratri in a grand manner every year since inception.

As in previous years, the celebrations this year started over a month ahead of the actual night of the festival. The main event in these preceding weeks was the Maha Rudram, in which the powerful and enthralling veda mantras known as shree rudram were chanted over a thousand times collectively by ritviks . The shree rudram, which occurs in the heart of the krishna yajur veda and includes the revered five-syllable panchaakshari mantra (“om nama shivaaya”), is ancient and divine poetry in praise and worship of Lord Shiva, with an undercurrent of implication that everything is divine, and that divinity is present everywhere and in everything, whether animate or inanimate. Click here to listen to the initial portions of the shree rudram being chanted at a spiritual conference held at the White House in 2014.

The Maha Rudram event which started on January 6^th and concluded on February 4^th was spread over multiple weekends, and as required by tradition each chanting session included at least 11 ritviks, and the 11 parts or anuvakas of shree rudram were chanted 11 times in each session. The chanting was accompanied by abhishekam (ritual ablution) to deities in the Temple. The sessions were preceded by an elaborate traditional ritual (mahaanyaasa) to spiritually purify and symbolically install the divine in the sacred Temple of one’s own body before chanting. The Maha Rudram concluded with a rudra homam, a sacred fire ritual. The ritvik volunteers who participated in this chanting marathon included (in no specific order) Srimantah Veeramani Ranganathan, Manjunath Hassan, Balakrishna Sastry, Dharmarajan Viswanathan, Arvind Krishnamoorthy, T.R. Venkatesh, Subbu Ramanathan, Krishnan Iyer, Ganapathy Subramaniam, Ram Srinivasan, Nanda Vaidyanathan, Kamakoti, Sridhar, Srinivas Bodapati, Sam Mohan, Lakshminarayanan Vaidyanathan,  Giri Bharathan,  Raghav Pattabhiraman, Raidu Rayasam,  Girish Sripathi,  Srinivas Gopalan, and V. Prabhakar.

Celebrations on the evening and night of Maha Shivaratri night itself consisted of a chatur-kaala pooja, consisting of 4 kaalaah or cycles. Each cycle included the chanting of shree rudram accompanied by linga abhishekam, and this continued all through the night.  A special highlight of the night was the singing of Tirumurai, ancient Tamil prayers composed by various revered saints in praise of Lord Shiva, by a team of devotees  organized by Sri Dharmarajan Viswanathan.

The auspicious occasion where devotees spent the entire night dwelling on the divine, concluded at dawn with a special alankaram (decoration) of the Shiva Linga by Sri Balakrishna Sastry, followed by rudra krama archana. The unique and beautiful decoration depicted Lord Shiva on the front of the Shiva Lingam and Devi Parvati on the back. All devotees were presented with a commemorative photo frame with pictures of deities from the Temple.

The Temple gratefully acknowledges the unflinching contributions of its enthusiastic volunteer corps, the energetic annapooranis (who prepared the sumptuous prasad), the generosity of its sponsors, and the enthusiastic support of the devotees who thronged the Temple on this sacred night.

THE TEMPLE

The Hindu Temple of New Hampshire has been serving the cultural and religious needs of the Hindu community in the Greater Nashua and Greater Boston area for 10 years. The Temple has been visited, graced and blessed by many well-known spiritual leaders and scholars. In addition to religious and spiritual activities, the Temple along with its cultural school Bharathi Vidyashram, has also been involved in various cultural and community service activities. The Temple had the honor last year of being invited to conduct an inaugural prayer (delivered by Temple founder Sri Veeramani Ranganathan) at the New Hampshire House of Representatives. The Temple which is located in Nashua off Exit 6 on Route 3 is easily accessible from most locations in the Greater Boston area. The Temple has a full-time priest, Sri Balakrishna Sastry. In addition to nitya aradhana (daily poojas), the Temple celebrates many major Hindu festivals, and also conducts Gayathri Homam on Saturday and Sunday mornings as part of a currently ongoing Gayathri Maha Yagna, and a monthly Anusha Pooja for Sri Kanchi Paramacharya.

The Temple invites devotees to visit the Temple, have darshan and receive the blessings of deities, and participate, sponsor, and volunteer in various Temple activities. The Temple seeks your patronage and support to help it grow and serve you well. Your donations are tax-deductible and may be made out to HTNH, PO Box 7041, Nashua, NH 03060. The Temple recently started a “Nitya Kainkarya Seva” scheme that provides an opportunity for devotees to sponsor an entire day (of the devotee’s choosing) of Temple services for $250. Please visit http://www.hindutemplenh.org for general information about the Temple and upcoming events. Please contact Sri Veeramani Ranganathan (hindutempleofnh@gmail.com), for any specific information.

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