How to Properly Move Household Deities to a New Home

The speaker opens with the question of how to carry one's household deities, especially the consecrated deities of the kul, from an old home to a new one — whether one is shifting between rented houses, or has lived and worshipped at one place for years and then, by Bhagwati's grace, builds a bigger house. He points to a video he has posted about Joshimath, where people were leaving their homes. A News18 report in it described a Brahmin family whose Kuldevi idol simply would not lift from its place; when they went to pick it up and carry it away, it felt as if someone were pushing them back. He asks why such things happen. His answer: when one serves and worships Bhagwati, the ishta and the shaktis of one's kul at a single spot for a long time, with rules and a spirit of surrender, that place becomes awakened. Whenever the family does SwastivachanA Vedic invocation of auspiciousness and well-being, recited alongside Yajna, offerings, or Havan., or offers ahutis in a yajna or Havan, an ahuti is also offered in the name of the deities of that place, and they too are remembered and worshipped. So those local deities do not want the shaktis to leave the spot, because through that family they too were being nourished. He calls this the diversity of sanatan culture.

Explaining why a long-worshipped spot holds power, the speaker asks the listener to remember Bhagwati's words in the Durga Saptashati. In the 13th chapter, Jagadamba"Mother of the World" — an epithet of the Devi. tells King Suratha and Samadhi that in whatever place her charitras are recited daily, she will remain present there with all her shaktis. He says the same applies to ordinary householders. Even if one does not recite the full Saptashati, or everything of one's ishta, but recites some portions of it with rules, in this Kali age these things bear fruit and the shaktis become established at that spot. The place where one has done seva and puja becomes awakened.

The speaker says that whenever one has to go to a new place, the first thing to do once the new house is built is to request one's ishta at one's own home, at one's own puja spot, and give them an avahan — what is called giving nevta. The nevta is done with full vidhi: five kinds of fruit, five kinds of sweets, cloth, DakshinaThe offering made to a guru or officiant that completes a rite; a ritual is held incomplete without it., AkshatUnbroken raw rice grains, held in hand along with water and flowers while taking a Sankalpa., Durva GrassA sacred grass offered to deities — especially Ganesha — and included among the items used to formally invite a deity before moving to a new location. grass and flowers, all arranged well. Some BhogThe food offering placed before a deity before anyone in the household eats.-prasad is kept separately for the deities of the place. A lamp is lit; one first bows to them, remembers Ganesha, then remembers the deities of the kul, then takes the name of every shakti established there, one by one. One sits at ease and makes the request. He gives the wording. One says: O Jagadamba, O Bhagwati, it is by your blessing and grace alone that I have succeeded in building such a good and capable house — or, if one is leaving for some other reason, one states that reason: we can no longer stay here because of this. Then: I request you that tomorrow at such-and-such time we will carry you from here with vidhi and full respect and set out, and establish you in the new house at the new place; that will be your new seat, you will be its new mistress, its new master, and there we will again do your seva-puja well. Come with us from here happily, be seated and established in the new house at the new place, and do the welfare of our home and family. So first one gives nevta in this way, telling them that tomorrow at this time we are going to take you.

The speaker says that at the new place, wherever one has made the puja spot, it should be decorated well with a ToranA decorative entrance hanging made of mango and Ashoka leaves with flower garlands, used to welcome an arriving deity or guest at the main door. and gateway, the way a new guest is welcomed. If not much can be done, then at least at the main door put a toran of mango leaves and Ashoka leaves, scented with two or four flower garlands. If a whole banana trunk can be had, or banana leaves, make pillar-gates on both sides with them. Draw a little RangoliThe figure drawn in colour on the ground where a deity is to be seated. for their avahan — for their pleasure and welcome when they arrive. After that, keep the puja place inside the house well decorated, bring the deities of the old house carefully, give all of them snan and so on, and then establish them. Once established, do puja of all of them as per capacity — oneself if one does one's own puja, or properly through a Brahmin. The main deva-vigrahas should be given abhishekaA ceremonial bathing of a deity’s image or symbol, usually with water and other prescribed substances. and snan.

The speaker adds a special case. If one is having a Satyanarayan Puja done, or if it is a new house where a Griha Pravesh will be performed with full vidhi, then the procedures become different. In that case, after the griha pravesh vidhi, or however the pandit says is proper there, the household deities' puja is done together with the griha pravesh puja. Following that, the deities are established there and their seva-puja is begun.

The speaker turns to ordinary people who are not doing anything on a large scale — simply shifting a rented house from one place to another. He says they too should try and do this vidhi, in a small form, but without fail. If Bhagwati has not given much capacity, then at least give the nevta with ordinary AkshatUnbroken raw rice grains, held in hand along with water and flowers while taking a Sankalpa. and flowers, make the request to them, and only then take them to the new place. There, with proper vidhi, one should oneself do at least a small one-day Havan.

The speaker explains what this vidhi achieves. If one does it this way, the japa, tapa and puja that had built up at the old place is not left behind: when Jagadamba"Mother of the World" — an epithet of the Devi. departs from that portion of the place, she takes the whole form with her, so that strength is not broken anywhere. Otherwise, he says, doing puja-paath for a long time at one place makes that place awakened and ChaitanyaFull consciousness and living presence of the Divinity, awakened by reciting the specific hymns that were recited before that deity first manifested.; the energies of one's japa mantra stay in its atmosphere. That will remain there in any case — but the punya, the TapobalSpiritual power accumulated through austerity and sustained practice — the counterweight that must exceed accumulated black-magic or negative energy for an affliction to fully lift. one had, Jagadamba will certainly carry along, and at the new place too there will be welfare. He then qualifies it: if one does none of this, no great difficulty is going to arise. It is a bhav of the mind. But there should be a way of doing things — as one is going, in the same manner take the deities along. There is nothing of superstition in it, and one should not fall into superstition.

As a second point, the speaker says that because one will have done japa, Havan and puja-paath at the old place for a long time, that place is going to remain ChaitanyaFull consciousness and living presence of the Divinity, awakened by reciting the specific hymns that were recited before that deity first manifested. no matter what. Whatever new person then comes to live at that place, their welfare has already begun. He closes by urging that one make the effort to take one's deities to the new place in the proper way, so that along with the family the deva shaktis can also dwell there happily and do the family's welfare.