Facing an unprecedented drought and crop failure, coupled with the death of nearly 200 farmers in the last four months due to suicide or cardiac arrest, the rationalist and Dravidian heartland of Tamil Nadu is all set to seek divine intervention to help ease the State’s water shortage and agrarian crisis.
Saturday and Sunday will see 108 Vedic scholars assemble at the holy pilgrimage city of Rameswaram and hold a two-day-long Soma Yajna (a ritual sacrifice) and 108 cow puja in order to propitiate the gods so that TN gets relief from drought, crop loss, drinking water shortage and natural calamities.
The Soma Yajna and cow puja are being held under the auspices of the Gaay Grama Sewa Trust. “This is part of a major initiative to conduct the yajna in places which are categorised as the Jyotirlinga shrines. There are 12 such places that enshrine Shiva in the form of a Jyotirlinga in the subcontinent and we will hold the yajna and cow puja in all these places over the next few months,” said Sankarlal, president, Gaay Grama Sewa Trust.
Rameswaram, will reverberate with chanting of Vedic hymns continuously for two days as the 108 priests perform the Soma Yajna.
“Along with the yajna, 108 cows will be worshipped with the intention of ushering in global peace and prosperity, not only in India but in the world at large,” Sankarlal told The Pioneer.
The cows being worshipped are of 23 native breeds taken from different parts of TN.
“The cow milk, urine, dung, ghee (clarified butter) used for the cow puja as well as the yajna have been collected from the 23 native breeds as it has been scientifically proven that only these breeds give pure products,” said KM Sivaramakrishnan, one of the moving spirits behind the event.
According to the organisers, the yajna and cow puja, will also send out the message to the general public that at any given time, only the milk, dung and urine of the native breeds is safe, clean and of medicinal value.
“The cross-bred cows are milk producing machines and we do not consider them cows,” said Sankarlal, who visited more than 4,11,000 villages in the country as part of the Viswa Mangal Gaay Grama Yatra to promote the well-being of native cows.
Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri, the 90-year-old Vedic scholar and poet from Kerala said Soma Yajna has its own significance. “I have held 12 such yajnas and it rained heavily for days after the yajna,” said Akkitham, who was recently honoured with the Padma Shri by the President of India.