[Advaita-l] Locations of pañcāyatana śilās

[Jaldhar H. Vyas via Advaita-l]

On Fri, 18 Jul 2014, Mikael Aktor wrote:

> Thank you for this information. It is interesting that you are from 
> Gujarat, because my impression is that today the pañcāyatana pūjā is 
> more practiced in the South than in the North.

Technically Gujarat is "south" (Gujarati Brahmanas are considered part of 
pa~ncha draviDa by dharmashastras) but I know what you mean.  This is 
because due to the twists and turns of history, Vedic and Smarta 
traditions have been less disturbed in Southern India.  But, as you know, 
the shilas used in this puja are from all over the country.  And 
Shankaracharya established his mathas in all four corners of Bharat too. 
So you will probably find examples of Panchayatana worship everywhere.

For instance one of the prayoga books I use (ahnika sutravalli) has 
pramanas for all the various nitya karmas of a shuklayajurvedi Brahmana. 
On this subject it quotes a writer on dharmashastra called (abhinava) 
Vachaspati Mishra.  He was from Mithila in the modern Bihar.

Also, Swami Sahajanand aka Swaminarayan was the 19th century founder of a 
Vaishnava sampradaya which is widespread in Gujarat and wherever in the 
world Gujaratis are found.  But he was born near Ayodhya.  In his 
shikshapatri (letter of instruction to his followers) he writes in shloka 
84:

viSHnuH shivo gaNapatiH pArvatI cha divAkaraH: |
etAH pUjyantayA mAnyA devatAH pa~ncha mAmakaiH || 84 ||

"Vishnu, Shiva, Ganapati, Parvati, and Divakar [Surya] these five devatas 
are to be worshipped and respected by my followers."

Muni Shatanand the authoritative Sanskrit commentator on this shikshapatri 
explicitly mentions the Vishnu panchayata mode in his tika on this shloka.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>