Abhishekam Query

[pslvax!sadhu at UCSD.EDU]

| A variety of liquids in 1008 kalashas (pots) are poured over the
| statue after *shudhi* (purification preparations). Flowers are
| showered at the conclusion of the ceremony.
| 
| What we want to do is to describe this ceremony in more detail.
| However, before we do this we want to look at the reasons
| (symbolism) behind this ceremony. 
| 
| One of the possible reasons, as suggested by Zimmer, is that when
| arihant-to-be obtains enlightenment the blood which flowed through
| his veins becomes transparent or milky in colour (hence the pouring of milk 
| over the image during abhesheka and the use of alabaster in
| making Jaina images installed in the temples, cf. Jaini, op. cit).
|..............


	Other reasons, both symbolic, and practical, as suggested by Sadhu:


	a) the milky liquid pouring down over the Diety or saint is
	symbolic of what the mystic experiences within when penetrating
	into the crown chakra; he has transmuted the sexual (milky)
	fluids into energy rising up the spine (kunalini) stimulating
	the pituatary and pineal glands to release their fluids, which
	in ecstatic inner vision, the mystic sees pouring down from
	within his head and down through the body and out the psychic
	nerve systems.  a tiny drop of this fluid (soma .. as in a
	recent thread in this group, the drink of the brahmans that
	none knows ..) brilliantly glowing within the cranium is
	refered to by christian mystics as "the perl of great price".

	abhesheka is of course performed at thousands and thousands of
	hindu temples daily

	b) the Gods, the inner plane dieties, the various Hindu
	Mahadevas come in their etheric body and inhabit the murthi
	during the abhesheka, and the liquid helps them to see better,
	and transmit their darshan better, to the devotees in the
	bhuloka (1st world), as normally our physical plane is more or
	less foggy looking when viewed from the inner worlds.  water
	helps purify the atmosphere, along with of course the mantras
	and other ritualistic acts performed by the priests during
	puja.  these acts are not merely symbolic, they have precise
	effects on the energy field surrounding the temple.


Aum Namashivaya
sadhunathan