Gaya Shraadh
Every question on the site tagged Gaya Shraadh, each answered from a timestamped source rather than a summary written from memory.
Ancestral rites performed at Gaya, believed to grant definitive liberation to the departed.
14 notes from our sourcesNotes from our sources
Up to how many generations of ancestors should be worshipped?
Three generations, or as many as you know. The scriptural limit is seven, because the birth of the eighth generation liberates the seventh — Gaya seats seven, while Tripindi Shraddha covers three: father, grandfather and great-grandfather.
When should Gaya Shraddha be arranged, and is Pitru Paksha the recommended time?
Tripindi Shraddha can be done at any time with no difficulty. Gaya Shraadh is a vast undertaking: it requires the cooperation of every household descended from your grandfather's brothers, because seven generations are seated. Arrange it only when that much family is willing.
Gaya is never an individual remedy — it is done with the whole family, not to correct one relative who missed the funeral rites
Bear in mind that Gaya Shraadh does not work that way. It is performed with the entire family, not as a personal correction for one person who missed the rites.
Where may Daan for the Pitrs be given during Pitru Paksha?
Go anywhere in a tirtha kshetra — a Ganga kshetra in particular is the more accepted. You may go to Gaya, to the Vindhya kshetra, to Kashi, to the Pushkar kshetra. Go wherever you wish and do it.
What is done at a teerth kshetra to liberate a bound pishaach or upadev being who has agreed to it?
The speaker says that if they do agree, then take them to a teerth kshetra — Gaya, or Trimbakeshwar, or whichever teerth kshetra they name — and there, on their behalf, have Gayatri jap, the shraadh sequence, tripindi, Narayan bali and nag bali done as required, and liberate them. Afterwards the house should be made completely pure again by having a path of the Sundarkand or an Akhand Ramayan and the like performed there.
What if the forebears installed a Brahm in the house?
At the time a Brahm is seated in a house it asks exactly this boon — that the people of your Kula will worship me. It is not a Deva but an Upadeva. Once it has been worshipped in the house it will go on taking worship, and it does not take Mukti quickly.
What is the story of Gayasur?
Gayasur had asked the boon that whoever came before him, whoever his sight fell upon, whoever became visible to him, would attain gati and mukti. Great sinners too began to be liberated, and the devatas came into great difficulty, saying creation had become unbalanced. They asked Brahma to find a resolution, and Brahma said: O Gayasur, there is no place more pure than your body, so I wish to perform a yajna upon you — and began to do so.
Narayana pressed Gayasur down with his feet, and he stands today as the Vastu Purush of the Ishan corner
As the yajna neared completion, different deities became established on different limbs; and when Gayasur still began to rise, Bhagavan Narayana placed his feet on his heart and pressed him down into the earth. Gayasur, delighted that Narayana's feet would remain forever on his heart, received many blessings and the boon that the sadgati of the pitrs would occur in his kshetra — hence all tirthas repeatedly and Gaya once. In part, in an amshatmak form, this same Gayasur is established in our house as the Vastu Purush.
Which Bhairav stands at Gaya?
Asked whether the Bhairav at Gaya is Kapal Bhairav as they have always believed, or whether — as a sadhu recently told the questioner — that is a wrong notion and the Ashta Bhairav are there, the speaker answers that the Shakti Peeth of Gaya is Mangala Gauri, the chief Shakti Peeth there and the chief place of Jagadamba. To his knowledge the Bhairav there is Kaal Bhairav. What the reality fully is, he does not know at present, and about what he has no information he will say nothing.
Is Bhairav the only devata who lives with bhoot, pret and pishach?
To the objection that bhoot, pret and pishach are around Bhairav, he asks which devata there is who does not live with bhoot, pret and pishach. You speak of Bhagavan Narayan — then go to Gaya sometime. Go and see Bhagavan Gadadhar, where Gaya Dham is called the Mukti Dham; right beside it there is a shamshan, and there Narayan himself is seated in the form of Masani. Where in the world one sees Bhagavan Shiva, there Bhagavan Narayan himself is present as Masani.
Why can a person doing both good and wrong karma escape suffering?
Because punya keeps arriving through some medium. He gives the Pauranik example of Gayasur, who had taken a boon from Bhagavan Narayan that whoever saw him would be liberated — however sinful the man, he would go straight to swarga. So even wicked men attained sadgati merely by seeing him.
What can be done if an ancestor was killed by tantric kriya?
When it happens in tantra kriya, the speaker says, that soul becomes subordinate to the very tantra shakti that performed the killing. So first it must be freed from that bondage, and only then is its shraadh kriya performed and its gati made. Otherwise you may keep having shraadh performed and their gati will not take place, and your own trouble will keep growing.
Should the puja of Laddu Gopal be done at home?
The speaker says the question probably refers to a very renowned tantrik who has made a whole place of his own, where people go and where he tells the pretas and pishaachas that he liberates them straight to the Pitru Dham, just as the pitr are liberated at Gaya Dham. He does not wish to take his name. That man forbids the puja of Balaji and forbids the puja of Laddu Gopal — go there and have havan performed nine times and all your work will be done, but do anything yourself and nothing will happen; spend lakhs of rupees. And why should Laddu Gopal not be worshipped at home, he asks — it is entirely by shastrokta vidhi vidhan; Laddu Gopal's puja can absolutely be done at home.
What of a daughter-in-law whose in-laws neither do shraddh nor allow it?
A listener says her father-in-law and mother-in-law neither perform shraddh nor let it be performed, that she had an anushthan done secretly in Pitru Paksha, and that at home she only does the japa of the Pitru Stotra and the Svadha Stotra. No matter, the speaker answers. When the in-laws hold such a thought, this is precisely what is meant by saying that prarabdha does not come ready-made — people build it themselves. For such a person, even if someone says he is doing shraddh at Gaya ji so that their gati may happen, the gati of such people does not take place: they will become Dhundhukari-like prets, and after that there will be a dosha.
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