SADAACHARA SMRUTI - SNANA TYPES

Types of  Snana

There are five main types of snana

* Dhyana snana

* Mala snana

* Mantra snana

* Varuna snana

* Jala snana

Dhyana snana

There are 72,000 Naadi’s in a human body.

Whatever is present in Brahmanda* it is also present in pindanda**.

The Nadi’s that are present in our body should be considered as the rivers. The most important Naadi’s in our body are eda , pingla and sushumna naadi. These three are considered to be Ganga, Yamuna and Sarawati respectively. Naadi – nerve/ blood vessel. Eda – runs downt on left side of spine from left nostril. Pingala –  runs down the right side of the spinefrom the right nostril. Sushumna – present in centre of the spinal cord. They both intersect at agynachkra or bhoomadhya and join with Sushumna. Hence we consider this intersect as triveni sangama. We should do dhyana of Bhagavantha ten finger counts above our head. As mentioned in Purusha Sukta “ atyatishTat daSAngulam”

atyatishTat - He stands beyond

daSAngulam - the count of ten fingers.”

How to imagine Lord Vishnu is ten fingers above us as

·       You are wearing a lot of ornaments

·       You bear shanka, chakra, gada and padma

·       You are wearing pitambara

·       Your Shantha Sundara Moorthy

·       In your feet there are  symbols of dwaja, vajra, ankusha, chakra, padma, gada.

·        River Ganga is flowing from your red feet.

·       That ganga water is flowing on my forehead. She is flowing in my body. She is flowing in my eda pingala, all the naadis present in my body.

·       She is removing all the stains from our body that is filled with our sins.

·       Now my body has become clean and pure.

·        This is all is because of Lord Pundarikaksha.

·       Once we pray to Pundarikaksha, we get clean inside and out.

 Apavitrah Pavitro Vaa Sarva-Avasthaam Gato-[A]pi Vaa |
Yah Smaret-Punnddariikaakssam Sa Baahya-Abhyantarah Shucih

Apavitra – Impure

Pavitra – Pure

Sarva – all

Avastha – conditions

Gata – fallen into any state or condition

Api  - even

Yah – who

Smaret – remember

Pundarikaksha – Lord vishu who has Lotus like eyes

Sa – he

Baahya – outer

Abhyantarah – inner

Shucih – pure / clean

If one is Apavitra (Impure) or Pavitra (Pure), or even in all other conditions, He who remembers Pundarikaksha the person becomes Pure outwardly as well as inwardly.

*Lord Pundarikaksha is similar to eyes which doesn’t allow the dirt to come inside the eyes and the lotus that doesn’t get dirty outside, He doesn’t get dirty inside or outside. He is epitome of purity.

This type of Dyanah snana gives us crore folds of result (phala) than doing the snana with 3 crore theerthas. It’s the most outstanding way of doing snana.  This doesn’t mea we should not do the physical bathing, it just means the Dyanah snana is very auspicious which has to be done every day.

*Brahmanda or macro cosmos

Macro Cosmos means the world above us along with earth and all the galaxies of creation with its elements.  Macro cosmos consists of heaven; sland, underground named respectively as Swarga, Marthya and Pathala.  This also consist of the sky above, the galaxies, stars, planets, the five elements denoted by fire, land, wind, water and sky, rivers, mountains, planets, plant and animal kingdom etc.

**Pindanda or micro cosmos

Micro Cosmos is referred to human being.  The human being is called pindanda because the being is formed by a solid formation called panda in the womb and gets called as pindanda

It is strange that whatever elements present in the Macro Cosmos are also present in the Micro Cosmos and hence human body (Micro Cosmos) is nothing but the replica of the Macro Cosmos which can be understood with the following mutual relationships

MACROCOSMOS	MICRO COSMOS
Fire	Fire of Digestion
Land	Smell
Wind	Respiration
Water	All liquids in the body
Swarga	Head
Mountains	Bulging bones
Stars	Hairs of the body
Rivers	Blood veins
Nine Planets	Nine openings in the body

Out of nine openings Sun and Moon rules over the two eyes, Mercury and Venus represents the nostrils, Saturn and Mars represents ears, Raahu and Ketu indicates openings of the excretory organs.