I salute the Divinities, the Fathers–i.e., the Fathers and Mothers–the great Yogis; I salute Pushti and Svaha; may we have such auspicious occasions over and over again.
When we do “Shradha” we always do offerings to our unknown ancestors and recite the mantra as explained above in the beginning. We do not take names as most of us do not know our ancestors two generations old.
We then invoke the Vishva-Devas, the fathers, the mothers, the grandfathers, and the grandmothers. Having so invoked them, the Vishva-Devas should first be worshipped; and then the three fathers, the three mothers, the three grandfathers, and the three grandmothers should be worshipped, with offers of Padya, Arghya, Achamaniya, incense, lights, cloths.
I always used to think about our ancestors, those who walked ahead of us. How deep our roots are, where our ancestors lived and died? Where we belong to? When and why we came here and settled down? These questions have no answers and therefore it is often haunting.
In one of our ancestral house, I have seen ancestors in the form of stone idols. We worship these idols, and do pooja once a year. The pooja is an interesting one, what we offer to them is egg burji, fish fry chicken curry and liquor. This is a practice continued since generations, so probably our ancestors liked chicken, fish, egg and liquor. Although we offer them very humanly matters still we consider them above us. If something untoward happens we fear our ancestors are not happy.
Logically these rituals teach us that we should never forget ancestors whether known or unknown. We should respect them and remember them at least once a year. This indirectly teaches us to be obliged to our roots. We are connected with them through an invisible series of life cycles.
Due to my restlessness I tried to explore my roots and the findings were startling.
Our ancestors were wiser than the new generation. They amassed wealth in the form of land and the next generations lost most of these. The new generations went to schools and opted for white collar jobs. They did not have time or inclination to look after the land and in due course we lost most of it. To my utmost surprise I learned that the land I purchased for constructing my house was once belonged to our own ancestors. The women in the family were courageous enough even in selecting their partners. I doubt the new generations in my clan have any such courage.
While most of us are glorified servants in one way or the other, our ancestors were masters of their own destiny.
I bow down in the memory of those who walked ahead of me.
