By Acarya Dasa
On February 20th we celebrated Nityananda Triodasi (the appearance day of Lord Nityananda) in Chennai. Lord Nityananda is an incarnation of Lord Balaram and the principal associate of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu in His harinama sankirtana mission. He freely distributes love of Godhead and performed many pastimes such as the deliverance of the sinful Jagai and Madhai.
We celebrated this auspicious day together with a bhakti-vriksha group from Chennai, a group consisting of a small number of devotees. Bhakti-vriksha is a program by ISKCON which allows for regular association and mentorship of devotees[1]. The bhakti-vriksha devotees made all the arrangements for the program, the main attraction of which was the abhisheka of Sri Sri Nitai Gaurasundar. The abhisheka consisted of massaging the Lordships with sandalwood oil and then bathing Them with panchagavya[2] , panchamrita[3], herbal extracts, fruit juices and scented water. During the abhisheka the devotees sang bhajans such as ‘Nitai Pada Kamala’ glorifying the lotus feet of Lord Nityananda. After the abhisheka we held a katha glorifying Lord Nityanada.
Once the program was over all the padayatris went onto the streets for sankirtana –so that everyone in the surrounding area could have darsana of Lord Nityananda on this auspicious day. The whole year long our party is on padayatra distributing books all over India. My Gurudev, Lokanath Swami says, “Srila Prabhupada’s books are packed with kirtanas” and to add to our strength we also have the presence of Sri Sri Nitai Gaurasundar with us on padayatra. They give us strength to continue under all circumstances. On this auspicious day we prayed to Nityananda Prabhu to bless us so that we may carry on with this mission eternally.
Sri Nitai Gaurasundar ki Jai!
[1] www.iskconcongregation.com
[2] Consists all of all things that a cow yields namely curd, milk, ghee, gomutra and gober www.radhanathswami.us/m/discussion
[3] A sacred mixture of five ingredients: milk, curd, honey, sugar and ghee in equal parts
