When Does Skipping a Year of Worship After a Death Turn Into a Curse?

The speaker says it is essential for everyone to know the rules for the year after a family member passes away. According to those rules, he says, until the tithi and month of the death come around again the next year, and until the first Varshiki Shradh has been done, one should not perform worship of the deities in the house. He lists what that excludes: no Navratri puja, no ShivratriThe chaturdashi night of Shiva that falls each month, as distinct from the annual Mahashivratri., and no festival at all, whether Diwali, Chhath or any other. The natural question, he says, is what one should do during this whole period. He explains why the subject became necessary: during Pitr Paksha many messages came from people saying they wanted an anushthan done in Pitr Paksha but the Varshiki had not yet happened, or that their relative had died only two or three months earlier in the same year, and they did not know whether to wait until next year or do something for them now. He also raises the second question the talk answers: what the rule is for people who finish the shradh in three or five days, or do the varshiki right after the thirteenth day.

The speaker's first point is about people who wrap up the whole shradh process in three or five days. The rites done at the place of residence right after a death, he says, are Dash Gatra, Ekadashi, Malin Shodashi and the other prescribed vidhi-vidhan. If all of that is being done within five or three days, then whoever is getting it done for you, from whatever panth, sampradaya or community, is, in his words, only writing the "brahma-valak" of your durgati, your ruin. He says the reason is simple: there is no Vedic or shastric rule for it. Nowhere in the scriptures, and in no Puranic text, will one find a vidhan that lets all the Shradh rites be completed in five days so that one becomes free of Sutak. People do it, he says, because of business or a job somewhere: finish it in three days, five days, get it over with. He points at big people, seths, people on high posts, who do exactly this. Anyone doing such acts, he says, is only inviting his own downfall. However rich they are today, whether the monthly salary is ten or fifteen lakh or they earn in crores, it takes no time: the intellect is corrupted and such people end up on the road. He says one is writing one's own durgati, and there will be no gati from it. He then turns sarcastic toward the people doing this false ritual: why do it at all? Take the corpse to the cremation ground, burn it, done. Bathe the next day and go about your work. What need is there for a fake Pind Daan? If you are treating it as a three-or-five-day affair, don't observe it at all, why spend even that money? Your own view is that the dead won't eat the pind anyway, so feed it to a dog or some man and be done. Leave it, he says, and stop doing such foolish things.

The speaker's second point concerns the practice, which he says is in circulation, of doing the varshiki early. If Dash Gatra and the other rites are done, Malin Shodashi and everything else is complete, Gauri-Ganapati pujan has been done, and then after the thirteenth day one waits one day and performs the vidhi of the Varshiki Shradh, then, he asks, why would you stop the worship of the deities for a whole year after that? He acknowledges the objection: some people who are scholars will say no, it must be a full year. But he says that at the present time it is not possible for many people to keep the entire set of rules for a year. If one is accepting this much according to desh, kaal and paristhiti (place, time and circumstance), he says there is no problem in it. For a householder in today's conditions, he says, it can be accepted that holding out for a year is not possible for many, if the household is not of that kind or there are no elders at home who can carry all these rules. And once you have had the varshiki performed, he says, the year-long Sutak rule is finished; it is not that you still have to follow the sutak rule for a year.

The speaker says people apply their own cleverness to the early-varshiki concession. The thinking, in his words, is: for a whole year the puja money will be saved. Navratri costs 15-20 thousand, ShivratriThe chaturdashi night of Shiva that falls each month, as distinct from the annual Mahashivratri. has a cost, Diwali has a cost, so why spend all that? So they do the Varshiki Shradh right after the thirteenth day and also tell the household that until that tithi and month come again next year and the varshiki is done once more, there will be no puja-path in the house. The ghee money, the oil money, everything is saved for the whole year. Very clever, he says; and then exactly that cleverness is written for you in return. He gives the two honest options. Either follow the rule and keep doing the monthly shradh, and do not do the varshiki at once. The shradh that belongs after one year is being done straight after the thirteenth day; don't do that, leave it. Do their shradh on that tithi every month, and when one year has passed, do the varshiki and then come out of Sutak. In that case, not worshipping the deities for the year is acceptable. What is not acceptable, he says, is doing the varshiki right after the thirteenth and also stopping the year's worship of the devi-devatas. Who is being fooled? Not the deities, he says; you are deceiving your own life. You have children, and the deceit falls on them: it is that very lineage that faces trouble later. Then people sit and abuse the astrologer, the tantrik, the doctor, the lawyer, saying it is this one's fault or that one's, when their own karma was written there. He says people never tell anyone about this, and asks them to look into their own collar. An astrologer will say there is Pitru Dosha according to the horoscope, and people will answer that they all spread this humbug. But why it is there, he says, you can analyse yourself. Not everyone is a Dhirendra Shastri who will tell you which mistake you made; the astrologer will only say that some act for the ancestors was not done properly. Unless you yourself say that you did the varshiki and then stopped puja for a year, or never did the varshiki, or finished it in five days, nobody will know. He adds that it may well be the young generation, the children now suffering and going to tantriks and astrologers for solutions, whose parents committed such acts at home. That, he says, is when these kinds of things happen.

The speaker takes the case where the Varshiki Shradh has not been done after the thirteenth day and will only happen next year, and the family has also taken up the rule of doing the shradh and Pind Daan vidhi on that tithi every month. Even there, he says, one more shortcut appears: "we won't do pind daan and the rest, we will just give a donation to BrahminOne of the priestly varna, fed or given dakshina at the close of many anushthans.s or donate something to someone in their name." He says that according to circumstance, if such a person is not available or you have no time, fine, it can be accepted. But if you are in India, in any region of India, and learned people who can perform the shradh are available there, then take out one day. For the people whose gift this body is, or for whichever relative died who is in some way a cause of you, you can at least set aside one day a month for them. Wherever you are, he says, it is not that being somewhere else for business or a job means you cannot do it there. Ask around nearby and get it done. People live there too, they die there too, their shradh vidhi is done there too; do it right there.

The speaker turns to the question of what to do about puja-path while it is stopped at home. If worship is halted for the year because the Varshiki has not happened, he says, you cannot offer dhoop, deep, NaivedyaThe food offering (Bhog) presented to a deity during worship, accompanied by water offerings and dedicatory mantras. and the like, you cannot bathe the deities, you cannot do Havan or yajna, and you cannot celebrate parva and festivals in full. But, he says, you can do manasopachar pujan, that is Manasika Puja, worship performed in the mind. You can give arghya to Surya Bhagwan. And if you are going to a tirth, then rather than taking darshan at the main shrine, you can perform the Shradh vidhi there at the tirth for those it is meant for, your parents. He qualifies this at once: where the varshiki has not been done, this is in fact forbidden, so follow the tradition according to your own region. If permission exists there, do it; otherwise do the tirth darshan itself for the sake of the ancestors.

The speaker says there is no prohibition whatsoever on Bhagavad Gita path, and that everyone should do it for the whole year. If you cannot recite all 18 chapters, do the third chapter, do the seventh chapter, do it in Hindi and with the mahatmya so you understand what you are being asked to read and what the mahatmya says will be gained; after that, with full attention, the path of the thirteenth chapter. At most it takes 15 minutes, he says, and it can be done every day. On how to sit: not at the puja place. Sit a little away from it, sit outside. You may sit on a Kusha Asana wearing white clothes and do the path while remembering Bhagwan Narayan. You may do AchamanaThe ritual sipping of water for self-purification before worship, one of the opening Shatkarma/Pavitrikaran rites., wear a PavitriA ring woven from kusha grass and worn on the ring finger, required for pitr karma and many other rites. on the hand and tie the ShikhaThe tuft of hair at the crown, knotted before certain rites.. There is no need to move the YajnopavitaThe sacred thread ceremony marking initiation into Vedic rites (Janeu) — if lapsed across generations, expiation (Prayashchitta) for each known generation is required before it can be resumed. to the apasavya position; sit in the normal yajnopavita and do the Gita path. Then, he says, mentally offer it at the holy feet of Bhagwan Narayan for the relative who has just gone to Vaikuntha, so that their SadgatiThe good onward passage of a departed being, the aim of pitr karma and tarpan. comes about. If you do it this way, the grace of the deities and ancestors will remain through the year and much will go well for you afterwards. He closes by saying to follow these rules rather than hunting for excuses to save money or time and doing hypocrisy in the name of all this, and to stop blaming others.