SADAACHARA SMRUTI - SNANA TYPES PART - 1

Mala snana

Before having Varuna snana when one cleans the dirt from *nava dwaras (nine gates), by rubbing them with gram flour, mud or soap and submerging into the water three times its called Mala snana.

*Nava dwara – 2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 nostrils, 1 mouth, 1 anus (excretory organ) and 1 genital (reproductive organ).

Sankalpa

Madye hakyam bhagavan mandira sanprakshalanam karma karishye.

Meaning

Think (do anusandhana) as our body is bhagavan mandira. I am cleaning bhagavan mandira before doing abhisheka for God.

Varuna snana

When bathing by submerging in water, like seas, river. After mala snana one has to do achamana, snana sankalpa then again go to the river or sea and take bath is called Varuna snana.  It is also called avagahana snana.

*Sankalpa can be done either before or after Mala snana.

Snana sankalpa

But please note we HAVE do to sankalpa everyday in our home before going to bath even if we are bathing in tap water.

Guru Jagannatha dasaru

 Jala snana

The bath taken from well, or from tap where we fetch water and pour on us.

When going to bath in a lake or river or tap first sprinkle some water on the head. Then do hand wash and leg wash. Think of Varuna bhaghvan(theertha raja), and Lord Matsya resides inside Varuna.   

Tvam raja sarva theerthanam

Thvameva jagathath pitah

Yachitham dehime theertham

Sarva papai hi pramochaya.

Hey Varuna (also think of matsya rupi bhagavan in him). Your responsible for all the water bodies. You save the world with your water. I should bath to remove my dirt, all my sins. So help make this water pure so that I get rid of all the sins and dirt. Pray Matsya before getting into water.

We should wear a wet cloth to do snana. Remember snana should be done nude, we should wear atleast one cloth either wrap ourselves with a towel or langoti (loin cloth). There is an instance in bhagavatha where Krishna has spoken about this. As we all know this story - :

The gopika sthri’s when doing kathiyayini vrata, came to bath in the river early in the morning. Everyone were bathing unclothed. So shri Krishna took all the clothes of these women and sat on the tree. So when these women plead Krishna to return their clothes. Krishna told 1. You should not feel shy in front of God as you should surrender yourself to God. 2. You should not bath without any dress. You should wear atleast one dress else it’s like insulting the theerth abhimani devatas (devatas responsible for water/theertha).

Mantra snana

Sprinkling (prokshne) of water on the head by saying mantra like apo hi shta mayo bhavah is Mantra snana. When one feels very sick, when too old, too weak, and not able to do snana. In that case take hot water and a towel/cloth that’s washed clean our body. The old cloth has to removed after the towel bath and a washed cloth has to be worn. Do achamana two times. The third time hold some water in your palm and meditate on gayathri mantra thrice. Sprinkle (prokshna from tulasi leaf) this water on your head. “apo hi shta mayo bhavah Ta na”. Then again do achamana thrice.  Apply gopichanda, mudra darne and sandyavandana. This shows we should not leave sandyavandana in any circumstance. The ones who is bed ridden, very old then he can think of gayathri mantra and think of Suryanthargada Bharathiramana Mukyapranathargada Lakshmi Narayana. Think of Pundarikaksha who makes us pure. They can do dhyana snana. 

SADAACHARA SMRUTI - SNANA TYPES

Types of  Snana

There are five main types of snana

* Dhyana snana

* Mala snana

* Mantra snana

* Varuna snana

* Jala snana

Dhyana snana

There are 72,000 Naadi’s in a human body.

Whatever is present in Brahmanda* it is also present in pindanda**.

The Nadi’s that are present in our body should be considered as the rivers. The most important Naadi’s in our body are eda , pingla and sushumna naadi. These three are considered to be Ganga, Yamuna and Sarawati respectively. Naadi – nerve/ blood vessel. Eda – runs downt on left side of spine from left nostril. Pingala –  runs down the right side of the spinefrom the right nostril. Sushumna – present in centre of the spinal cord. They both intersect at agynachkra or bhoomadhya and join with Sushumna. Hence we consider this intersect as triveni sangama. We should do dhyana of Bhagavantha ten finger counts above our head. As mentioned in Purusha Sukta “ atyatishTat daSAngulam”

atyatishTat - He stands beyond

daSAngulam - the count of ten fingers.”

How to imagine Lord Vishnu is ten fingers above us as

·       You are wearing a lot of ornaments

·       You bear shanka, chakra, gada and padma

·       You are wearing pitambara

·       Your Shantha Sundara Moorthy

·       In your feet there are  symbols of dwaja, vajra, ankusha, chakra, padma, gada.

·        River Ganga is flowing from your red feet.

·       That ganga water is flowing on my forehead. She is flowing in my body. She is flowing in my eda pingala, all the naadis present in my body.

·       She is removing all the stains from our body that is filled with our sins.

·       Now my body has become clean and pure.

·        This is all is because of Lord Pundarikaksha.

·       Once we pray to Pundarikaksha, we get clean inside and out.

 Apavitrah Pavitro Vaa Sarva-Avasthaam Gato-[A]pi Vaa |
Yah Smaret-Punnddariikaakssam Sa Baahya-Abhyantarah Shucih

Apavitra – Impure

Pavitra – Pure

Sarva – all

Avastha – conditions

Gata – fallen into any state or condition

Api  - even

Yah – who

Smaret – remember

Pundarikaksha – Lord vishu who has Lotus like eyes

Sa – he

Baahya – outer

Abhyantarah – inner

Shucih – pure / clean

If one is Apavitra (Impure) or Pavitra (Pure), or even in all other conditions, He who remembers Pundarikaksha the person becomes Pure outwardly as well as inwardly.

*Lord Pundarikaksha is similar to eyes which doesn’t allow the dirt to come inside the eyes and the lotus that doesn’t get dirty outside, He doesn’t get dirty inside or outside. He is epitome of purity.

This type of Dyanah snana gives us crore folds of result (phala) than doing the snana with 3 crore theerthas. It’s the most outstanding way of doing snana.  This doesn’t mea we should not do the physical bathing, it just means the Dyanah snana is very auspicious which has to be done every day.

*Brahmanda or macro cosmos

Macro Cosmos means the world above us along with earth and all the galaxies of creation with its elements.  Macro cosmos consists of heaven; sland, underground named respectively as Swarga, Marthya and Pathala.  This also consist of the sky above, the galaxies, stars, planets, the five elements denoted by fire, land, wind, water and sky, rivers, mountains, planets, plant and animal kingdom etc.

**Pindanda or micro cosmos

Micro Cosmos is referred to human being.  The human being is called pindanda because the being is formed by a solid formation called panda in the womb and gets called as pindanda

It is strange that whatever elements present in the Macro Cosmos are also present in the Micro Cosmos and hence human body (Micro Cosmos) is nothing but the replica of the Macro Cosmos which can be understood with the following mutual relationships

MACROCOSMOS	MICRO COSMOS
Fire	Fire of Digestion
Land	Smell
Wind	Respiration
Water	All liquids in the body
Swarga	Head
Mountains	Bulging bones
Stars	Hairs of the body
Rivers	Blood veins
Nine Planets	Nine openings in the body

Out of nine openings Sun and Moon rules over the two eyes, Mercury and Venus represents the nostrils, Saturn and Mars represents ears, Raahu and Ketu indicates openings of the excretory organs.

SADAACHARA SMRUTI - SNANA

Step 15

Snana

Where is god inside us? God is present in the 3.5 crore pores in our skin (romakupa), blood vessels, 72000 nerves (naadi), seven tissues [sapta dhatus – rasa (plasma), rakta (blood), mamsa (muscles), meda (adipose tissue), asti (bone and cartilage), majja (nerve), shukra (reproductive system)], ten indriyas in each and every nook and corner of or body Shri Hari.

Hence, Bathing is equal to doing abisheka for bimba roopi god inside us. Just like how we do abhisheka for saligrama, with that same respect we should take bath.  We can also think we are doing abisheka to God when we give bath to a baby.

Man has to do snana for head (shiras snana). When doing snana in river avagahana snana is must. In which head has to be immersed first then the whole body. But women can’t do head bath every day, because in every women (sumangalis) hair split (baithale) ganga devi is present. Hence it’s called kanta (neck) snana. It’s always better to bath in cold. If not possible try to bath in cold water, hot water then again cold water. Before taking bath wrap a wet cloth around then start to bath.

Why do we do mel (mele/above) snana?

As we all know if we do melsnana it’s considered to be madi (suchi). Men also do melsnana and women after their completion of periods (rajasvala) do mel snana. Ten finger spaces above our head; God Dhuriya is present (which we will see in detail in later sections). Hence when we do melsnana it is considered doing abhisheka for the Dhuriya roopi bhagahvanta through which we get pure.