A Wrongly Performed Durga Saptashati Shatchandi and Three Untimely Deaths — the Mistakes the Speaker Lists and the Rules He Draws

The speaker opens by saying that from the Durga Saptashati path of Bhagavati Jagdambika comes such unique grace that there is no material wish in life which cannot be fulfilled — this, he says, is the truth. If someone takes refuge in Bhagavati and does the daily Saptashati path with the correct vidhi-vidhan, her grace comes in an unmatched way. But, he says, when a person, driven by fate, performs the Saptashati anushthan with the wrong vidhi-vidhan and in the wrong way, many kinds of suffering come into their life. This is the ordinary matter that is always discussed: that a deva or mantra curse (Shraap) gets attached. And of the Saptashati in particular it is said that it is a text which, if you do its parayan wrongly, holds within itself the capacity to swallow the whole universe. These 700 mantras of the Chandi Path are tantric; they are not ordinary. He draws a line: worship of Bhagavati with pure feeling (bhava) is entirely right and proper in its own place. But when you are following a TantroktaStated in the tantras, as against a vedokta form of the same rite or mantra. vidhi-vidhan, you must perform only vidhi-bound karma. He adds that he raises this not to spread fear but, as he always says, to clear people's confusion.

The speaker says that two people brought him such a case, about ninety percent alike — perhaps, he suggests, because of the Guru Parampara they belong to, though it is not one parampara; both are people of the Vaishnava sampradaya. He spoke with one of them only once and did not get his permission, so that case is left out. The other discussed everything fully and asked that his story be told so that others' confusion is removed and Bhagavati is worshipped correctly. That man, initiated in the Vaishnava sampradaya, was ordered by his Vaishnava guru — who saw his devotion to Bhagavati — to begin the Durga Saptashati path. At first he had to do only nine paths. Later, out of devotion and on the guru's order, he undertook a Shatchandi, deciding he would recite for 100–108 days. The speaker stresses that the guru gave him no vidhi-vidhan at all: how a Saptashati parayan, and a Shatchandi parayan at that, is to be done at home, how at a temple, what the rules are, what has to be observed, what the vidhi of the path is. So the man took whatever information he could find himself from Durga Archan Paddhati and similar books, relied on the archan paddhati, and started doing it on his own after reading it. After the anushthan was completed, upheaval broke out in the man's life — in fact it had already begun midway. In his family, in the three years since these parayans, three people died while walking about, in a perfectly normal state, and nobody has any answer as to why. Two of them were the man's own sons; now only one daughter remains. The third was his younger brother, whom he had loved like a son. A matter, the speaker says, of great irony.

Turning to what the man actually did, the speaker says: fine, he was initiated in a certain parampara — leave that as it is. But what surprised and shocked him was that, even though the man is a Brahmin, he had given up his yagyopavit (sacred thread). He did not wear it as a daily rule. He had kept it on only for as long as it took to complete the 100–108 paths — and havan-based vidhan, the speaker adds, leave aside for now altogether. After the paths, he could not keep the daily rules of wearing the yagyopavit, so he gave it up. The speaker says the whole thing goes wrong right here: how did a guru give the order, "all right, if you cannot wear it, no matter — give it up by this vidhan, do it this way, and put it on at the time of pujan"? So, the speaker says, in his opinion the first mistake was made here.

The second matter, the speaker says, is one he always states: if you have bhakti and bhavana toward Bhagavati, then recite the Saptashati in Hindi itself — if you do not know Sanskrit pronunciation, or have not practised it, or have not learned the Saptashati path. When this man was asked how he did his Saptashati path, he said in Sanskrit. Did he know the pronunciation? He said there were many impurities and mistakes, but the feeling always stayed in his mind; when he asked his guru, the guru said, "serve Mai with bhava," and told some story to the effect that even if you make mistakes through unclear pronunciation there is no particular problem. The speaker says he will accept this up to a certain level. But when you are going to do 108 paths, and you are making mistakes, and the uccharan is simply wrong — then it is a matter of trouble, is it not? Why recite in Sanskrit at all? He should have done the 108-path parayan in Hindi, with bhava. Leave every other mistake in the world aside, the speaker says — this was the single biggest blunder mistake. He did not know Sanskrit pronunciation and yet kept making this error, unclear and wrong uccharan, and because the meaning turned into anartha (its opposite), this became one cause of his misfortune. Reciting only in Sanskrit, the man did not even know what the shlokas mean. His rule, he says, has been stated many times: if you want to do it with bhava, do it in Hindi with bhava foremost, and Jagdamba will be pleased with that. Do not do the full Saptashati; do only the StutiA passage of praise offered to the deity, shorter and less formal than a stotra. paths — recite the Ratri Suktam, recite the Devi Suktam, recite the stuti in the fourth chapter, the Shakradi Stuti. Ma will be pleased with that.

The third thing, the speaker says, is that — he does not know why — the man was never told this rule: at whatever time you do the path, light a Karma Sakshi deepak (a lamp as witness of the karma), and in Navratri keep an Akhand Jyot and the like. What akhand jyot rule had he been told? That with every parayan there would be one akhand jyot, and the old akhand jyot would burn for as long as it burns, and as soon as it finished he should do its visarjan. That is, when he did the Chandi path today he would light one akhand jyot; tomorrow, when he did the Saptashati path again, he would light a second jyot; today's jyot would burn until tomorrow or the day after, then finish, and he would remove it. This, the speaker says, was his rule.

The next mistake, the speaker says, was the mandal pujan the man followed. He learned it from Durga Archan Paddhati by Shri Shri Acharya Shivdatt Mishra Shastri — the most widely circulated book — and from it he built a Navagraha Mandala and whatever else he could manage. Every day he invoked (avahan) each deity of each mandal with the full elaborate vidhi given there, which is the vidhi of a Chandi yaga, and every day after his path he did their visarjan. The point to notice, the speaker says, is that in a yaga, when avahan is done, havan-based vidhan goes with it. This man did no Havan at all — in 108 paths he never once did havan — while doing daily avahan and daily visarjan with the whole mandal. When you are doing a 108-path parayan at home, that is simply not the rule; it is not done like this, and not on this scale. Alternatives exist for it, and that is exactly why, he says, the person who knows a thing should know that very thing and do it properly. So this was one more mistake the man made here.

The fifth mistake, the speaker says: there was no Ganesha anushthan of any kind; the same mistake again — no Bhairav anushthan; no Batuk pujan; no Yogini pujan; no special NaivedyaThe food offering (Bhog) presented to a deity during worship, accompanied by water offerings and dedicatory mantras., bhog or offering of any sort; no Bali or anything else. Nothing at all — only this plain routine was going on. If he had at least followed the archan paddhati itself, the speaker says, it contains a havan-based vidhan; had he done that even once a week, or once a fortnight, some further vidhans would have been taken care of in it and a little peace would have been maintained. He never did it.

And the biggest mistake, the speaker says: when the man did the path — in Sanskrit, never in Hindi — he did not even know the meaning, what a given shloka means. Had he recited a little in Hindi too, properly, he would at least have known that Bhavani has said there that whoever — knowing it, or even unknowingly — offers her Bali in the annual (varshik) pujan, she fulfils all of that person's wishes as well. That Chandi, the speaker says, is bali-priya: she loves bali. Where there is a path, bali will certainly be offered. This man never offered bali at all. The speaker says he states this clearly, not to frighten anyone, but because this is the path of tantra and the Saptashati is a tantric text. If you are reciting the Saptashati daily in Sanskrit, with the full vidhi, with its six angas (Shadanga), then at least one bali or so should be given every day. Let it be a nimbu; he will not ask for kushmand (ash gourd), but a nimbu, or laung and kapoor (clove and camphor), can certainly be done. And beyond that, at least once a week, or once a fortnight on AshtamiThe eighth tithi of a fortnight, held especially favourable for shakta rites. or Chaturdashi tithi, some good bali prayojan should be done — offer nine nimbu, or eighteen nimbu, or twenty-seven nimbu. Bali vidhan, he says, must be done by such a person. The fruit he describes: her Yoginis stay satisfied and show grace; many of your misfortunes (durbhiksha) and ill conjunctions (duryoga) are removed; the wrath of malefic grahas is removed; Bhagavati's grace-prasad is obtained; and if some offence or mistake has been committed, forgiveness for that too is obtained.

So look, the speaker says: this is not any kind of psychological matter. It is not what people call philosophy — not a matter for airing philosophy. He asks those who push philosophy into it to pay attention: those who inject philosophy into the subjects of tantra should stay away from these subjects; it is not their subject. If you inject philosophy into it, he says, then the people who listen to your words go on to do senseless acts and make mistakes with texts of this kind — and where all that philosophy ends up creeping in, you do not even come to know. You will lose nothing; but that poor person's life will be ruined, just as this man's is being ruined. Do not inject philosophy. Keep bhakti-bhava and philosophy away from the matters of tantra, he requests.

Next, the speaker says, come the special rules and special cautions for BrahmacharyaStrict celibacy required through an extended ritual observance. and for food and drink. The man had been told: since you are a ShaktaBelonging to the stream that takes the Goddess as the supreme principle., your wife too is a form of Bhagavati — if you do not keep her pleased, how will you keep Bhagavati pleased? The speaker notes this is the very same point over which a whole controversy once broke out. In that tangle, he says, the man did not observe brahmacharya at all. His sattvik eating and drinking was more or less fine, but he did nothing special by way of brahmacharya — that is, about once a week his own household (grihastha) activity went on. This, the speaker says, is entirely wrong; it should not have happened. Later he asks again: where did brahmacharya go? Why was it not observed?

After the 108 paths were complete, the speaker says, the trouble began, and the first death in the house was that of the man's younger brother. What did he do first? The death had occurred, the year's annual rite (varshiki) was not yet complete, and he had not spoken with anyone about how such a thing could have happened — it was an Akala Mrityu, an untimely death, which is a serious matter. No Narayan Nagbali for the untimely death was done, no pinda rites, nothing. Only the ordinary Shradh of thirteen days, which is done in its own place, did he complete. Then, before the varshiki was complete, on the say-so of someone at home — having taken information from someone else that "we did the path in such-and-such a way, could this have happened because of it?" — somebody told him: you never offered bali. So he offered a pashu bali (animal sacrifice) right there at home. And within a year of offering that pashu bali, the speaker says, of his two sons and one daughter, both sons died untimely deaths — by one cause or another; leave aside what the cause was. Now only the younger daughter remains. The man, he says, is now in deep mental depression, terrified, weeping wherever he goes.

The speaker says that if now the man's wife, his parents, his friends, the society around him, or he himself sit and curse Jagdamba, curse the Saptashati, and curse devotees like the speaker who hail Jagdamba — then, brother, whose fault is it? Judge for yourselves, he says. Who failed to do vidhi-bound, vidhi-sanctioned karma? Who transgressed the Durga Saptashati? When you did not know clear pronunciation, why did you do it? So, he says, people want to do tantric work; they do senseless things in it; when a mistake happens they make a still bigger mistake on top of it; and then it is your own acts and karma that bring such punishments (dand). You may say he is speaking heartlessly about the man — but the man is himself responsible for his mistakes. And there are many other matters besides: where did BrahmacharyaStrict celibacy required through an extended ritual observance. go? When such events happen to someone, he says, nobody can reverse them now. There can be much argument, much sophistry, abuse and quarrel on these matters — nothing will come of it. Remember, he says, this is not a matter of making a video go viral; it is not a negative subject. He always cautions: do not be afraid — to remove that fear, bring competence (yogyata) into yourself. You need the yogyata to read the Saptashati. What must you do for that? Learn clear Sanskrit pronunciation. When you do it without learning, without knowing the vidhi, that is when trouble comes to you. He adds that his own personal experience is somewhat related to this — what kinds of punishment have to be borne for wrong, unclear pronunciation and wrong acts — but that is a separate subject he keeps for another time.

Looking at this man's life, the speaker says, everyone — himself included — gets a very big lesson: do not do it the wrong way. Do not take the Saptashati as a joke. He notes that he has taught other material on the Saptashati too, including the vidhi for reciting it by the Mahavidyas krama. If you do not have the strength (samarthya) to do the daily path, why are you doing it? Do not. Do it by the Mahavidya krama; do it with bhava; do it in Hindi. Positive results come from that, and the experiences of what positive things happened in life from that krama he has shared separately. But, he says, a person is always in a great hurry. He is not saying this against the man, he adds — call it a case study, call it a life; it is something to learn and understand from, so that people do not make the mistake. Do not run away from Bhagavati; and if you want to go near her, walk the right path. If we do not know how to leap four steps at once — if we lack the competence and the strength — then either we make ourselves strong enough to leap them, or we climb one step at a time, calmly. That, he says, is where our own good sense lies. The rest, he closes, is your own sophistry, your own opinions, your own greatness and your own destiny.