Star-Trekking in Shaka Samvat 1945
Dear Reader,
You are very precious to me.
Disregarding the social media seductress in her many avatars (WhatsApp,
Facebook, You Tube, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and many others), you have
indulged me by reading some of my very prosaic, dull, and drab blogs, and some
of you have been so generous as to convey your appreciation, too. That is why I
have written this blog with your benefit and welfare in mind.
Ramnarayan Panchang 2023
You possibly belong to the vanishing
tribe of serious readers, and I guess you have a ‘To Read’ list, like your ‘TO
DO’ list, but less threatening. I
recommend inclusion of Ramnarayan Panchang (रामनारायन पंचांग)
2023 of Lala Ramswarup Ramnarayan & Sons (called RP hereafter) Jabalpur,
World’s only Panchang published regularly for the last 90 years, as asserted by
the publisher!
Why RP?
A fair question. Why, indeed, when you
manage your life well without any panchang? And why RP?
Before proceeding further, I solemnly
declare that I am not a Distributor/Stockist/Commission Agent/Marketing
Manager/Seller of the company which publishes RP. My recommendation is entirely
for your benefit.
What is a Panchang?
Of course, you know that. Panchang,
aka Panchangam, Panjika or Panji, is an almanac based on our astronomical and
astrological heritage.
Since there are at least thirty
regional panchangs, you may be familiar with your regional panchang, and may
not have heard of Lahiri Panchang of the north, Khadiratna Panji of Odisha, Madan
Gupter Panjika of West Bengal, and others. Suffice to mention that panchang is far more
detailed, and hence indisputably superior to the Gregorian calendar, an
unfortunate remainder of our colonial past.
(Image Credit: Wikicommons Images - Unknown
Author
Fabric Hindu calendar/almanac
corresponding to Western years 1871-1872. From Rajasthan)
USP of RP
RP is no ordinary panchang. Once you read it, you would agree that it is
indeed special.
RP may look thin with a mere twelve
pages (front and back pages are counted as one page), but it is a mini encyclopaedia.
You would find an amazing range of information in it.
In addition to the routine
Month-Date-Day format of the Gregorian calendar, RP provides you details of
Tithi, Nakshatra, Festivals, Vrats, Graha Sthiti, Shubh Muhurt, and Rashiphal.
RP also thoughtfully provides on each
page: 1. Thought for the Month; 2. Two boxes with Pragmatic Tips for households
(Ex- set your AC at 25 degrees centigrade to save on your electricity bill); 3.
Two columns for date-wise ‘Doodh ka hisab’ (and a योग row to derive
the monthly total), and Laundry;
and 4. A blank box for miscellaneous use.
RP’s Thought
for the Year is:
इस वर्ष का विचार
सुख चाहिये तो
एडजस्ट करते रहिये
या एडजस्ट होते रहिये।
How should you use RP? Once a month is
over, do not mechanically flip the page to display the current month on the
wall; read the back page. In fact, once you buy RP, you should sit down, and
first read the back pages – all twelve of them – preferably in a single sitting.
The tithis, nakshatras, tyohars and vrats will come when they will; but why not
benefit by reading the back page right away?
Know Your RP Quiz
Only if you have read the back page of
Month November would you know of जागरूक बनो प्रतियोगिता, a simple Quiz –
just find 5 missing words in the given sentences, which are picked from the articles
in RP. Last date for submission of entry is 31 August. Hurry, there still is
time to join the contest! Eleven 1st prizes of INR 5000 each, to be
won through a lucky draw. Winners would be informed by Post, and no contestant
may call in this regard, and those who call would be automatically
disqualified!
Travel Advisory: दिशाशूल विचार
As you are aware, travel on a particular day
of the week to a particular diga (direction) may be auspicious or inauspicious,
and it is prudent to avoid travel in the contra-indicated diga. RP is cognisant
that people today travel more frequently than ever before, and may not always
have the luxury of advance planning. What choice does one have if Boss convenes
a physical meeting at New Delhi tomorrow at 9.30 AM?
RP offers necessary tips to annul the
disha-shula. An easy-to-do method is to make a deemed departure at an
auspicious hour for which you need to move a book or notebook or a piece of
cloth, anything you would take with you for your trip, move it from its
appointed place and keep it in a different place, but remember to pack it in
your bag when you leave for your journey. The disha-shula stands neutralised.
Another easy method to cancel the
baneful impact of disha-shula is to eat (or drink, as the case may be), before
your departure, milk on Monday, gud on Tuesday, udad dal on Saturday (if taking
an early morning flight, you must ask your husband to cook it the previous evening and
keep it in the fridge. Just so you do not forget to eat the dal before
departure, you could put your deemed departure item near the fridge.) Now you
have two remedies for a single disha-shul!
Choughadia
Our ancient astrologers were not
content with calculating the planetary positions for the day or the night.
Since the planets were always in motion, they provided ghadi, a unit of time measurement,
which divides each day (6AM to 6PM) into 8 blocks of 90 minutes each. Ditto for
each night (6PM to 6AM). That gives the user 16 ghadis for a 24-hour period,
and each ghadi falls into one of the two broad and seven sub-categories – Auspicious
(अमृत, शुभ, लाभ , चर), and Inauspicious ( उद्बेग , रोग , काल).
It just struck me that none of the
several books I have published has become a bestseller, and the reason must be astrological.
Serves me right for not publishing my books on auspicious tithis.
To make amends, I am publishing this
blog on an auspicious date and time. I am confident this will be read by more
readers than any of my previous blogs. How may that happen? Since I have posted
it an auspicious tithi and hour, the fingers of each reader would be guided, without
the reader being conscious of the act, to forward it to five or more of their
contacts!
***
Disclaimer
I am more
than a little surprised by the early feedback from some of my readers; one
rushed to Amazon to buy a copy of RP, another searched in vain for a digital
copy to read the stuff on RP’s back-page, and yet another thought the Hindu
Panchang picture in my blog was from RP. These readers seemed to have missed my veiled but gentle satire on panchang dependence in general and on Ramnarayan Panchang in particular. Hence this disclaimer.
1. I have NOT recommended for you to buy
a copy of RP. If you are a panchang user, the one you have is as good. Further,
most local Dailies and Astro-channels on TV provide ‘Aaj ka Panchang’, and
several Apps and portals provide free astrological services. Make a Google
Search, and you would find prokerala.com, drikpanchang.com, and many others.
2. Do NOT participate in ‘Know Your RP
Quiz’. I have no idea if it is an authentic, verifiable contest.
3. Do NOT waste your time reading the
back-pages, and even the front pages of RP if you have no interest in
astrology.
4. The painting in my blog is in public
domain, sourced from wikicommons images, and not from RP.
5. I neither recommend reference to panchang to manage your
life, nor do I recommend purchase of RP or any other panchang.
***
No comments:
Post a Comment