What happened at the house from 8th July till 11th

All the ritwiks who were entrusted with the job of co-particiation in the function arrived at home by the early hours of 8th. According to the traditional system, chanting of the Navagraha mantra to its related number is what is expected of. It is surely time consuming since some mantra is easy to chant while some other mantra takes lot of time. The nine planets are Sun for which the mantra chanting should be 6000; the Moon for which the mantra is 10000; the Mars for which it is 7000; the Rahu for which it is 18000; the Jupiter for which it is 16000; the Saturn for which it is 19000; the mercury for which it is 17000; the Venus for which it is 20000; the ketu for which it is 7000 - thus it comes to 120000 - a full cycle of the rotation of the nine planets. In otherwords, 120 years cycle is for the rotation of the nine planets and half of which is considered as a full length of the life of a human being. As such it is called SHASHTI POORTHI - completion of the sixty years - half of the full cycle and the prayers are as such becomes necessary to keep the concerned alive till another sixty years - hopefully to complete the full cycle of the years of the nine planets.

Well, this is one part, the other part is chanting of the mantra for the birth star of the person concern - in my case - it is Satabhisha - a star in Aquarius. The mantra of the star atleast to a counting of 10000. The next one chanting of the mantra for the Maha Mrityunjay - the Lord to conquer the death - and this mantra to the extent of atleast 100000. This apart - since I am from Sri Vidya Cult, we follow the Sri Yaaga and its procedure - as such Mantra chanting of Shri Lakshmi Ganapathi, Baala, Panchadasi, Shodasi has also become a must, the total number of which has become another 100000. Thus in all 330000 mantra chanting has to be take place before 11th. To say, in a period of 4 days this was all expected to be completed, hence keeping the quantum of the load of the work, we engaged the required number of ritwiks for this purpose. The Ritwiks are expected to complete the chanting of the mantra to the required number and also make tarpana to the extent of one tenth of it. Thus one tenth of what has been done for tarpana has to be done in the form of a sacred sacrifice in the fire which is called HAVAN. There on, one tenth of the Havan number has to be made annadaana - feeding. Now let us see what it is, 330000 is the total number - 33000 is the tarpana, 3300 is havan and 330 is annadaana. This is the system suggested, it can increase, but no possibility for reduction of the number. Though it is on many occasions, the system is changed to suit the need of the day and conveninece in many areas, this particular program of Shashti Poorthi - there was no compromise for the system.

There fore the Ritwiks were requested to stay at home for successful completion of the entire process on time so that the first part - chanting of mantra; the second part - tarpana are completed by the evening of 11th. The other two parts, that is HAVAN and ANNADAANA were planned on 12th and 13th of July at the changed venue