Hari Om Parents,
We started our class by writing Likhitha jaapa (writing the name of any Ishta devata god's name), then followed by daily prayers (Page 11 of My Prayers book). We made Alisha, shravas ,Maya and Siddharth lead prayers for class this week. We request parents to help children to learn the Daily Prayers. We started Ganesha Panchratnam. We learnt 5 stanzas. The link is given at the end of the email. We recapped what we did in the last few classes. Shantanu & Ganga's marriage and later Shantanu and Satyavathi. Vichitravirya's marriage and Amba's vow to defeat Bheeshma, Dhritarstra and Pandu growing up under the guidance of Bheeshma.
A question which I read in one of the teacher notes, we have asked the kids to come up with an answer in our next class
1. "What is that we all make a lot of but cannot see?"
2. Write the family tree for at least three generations both the mother and father side.
We continued with the Mahabharata story. We went on to the backstory of why Ganga drowned 7 children of hers and Santanu.
Vasishtha cursed the eight Vasus to be born on earth, and moved by their supplications, Ganga was to be their mother. This was how the Vasus came to incur Vasishtha's curse. They went for a holiday with their wives to a mountain tract where stood the hermitage of Vasishtha: One of them saw Vasishtha's cow, Nandini, grazing there. Its divinely beautiful form attracted him and he pointed it out to the ladies. They were all loud in praise of the graceful animal, and one of them requested her husband to secure it for her. This cow belongs to the sage Vasishtha who is the master of the whole place. Before Vasishtha returns they all escape with the cow. All the Vasus joined together and took the cow and its calf away with them. When Vasishtha returned to his ashram, he missed the cow and the calf, because they were indispensable for his daily rituals. Very soon he came to know by his yogic insight all that had taken place. Anger seized him and he uttered a curse against Vasus. The sage, whose sole wealth was his austerity, willed that these vasus should be born on earth. When the Vasus came to know of the curse, repentant too late, they threw themselves on the sage's mercy and implored forgiveness. Vasishtha says that the curse must take its course. Prabhasa, the Vasu who seized the cow, will live long in the world in all glory, but the others will be freed from the curse as soon as born. The Vasus felt relieved and approached the goddess Ganga and begged her to become their mother. For our sake we beseech you to descend to the earth and marry a worthy man. Please throw us into the water as soon as we are born and liberate us from the curse is what the Vasus requested the goddess Ganga and she granted their wish when she came to the earth and became the wife of Santanu.
Going back to Pandu and Dhritarastra's time, we continued on.
Pandu was ruling the kingdom of Hastinapura as Dhritarastra even though being the eldest born he was not chosen due his blindness. This caused an unseen jealousy between Dhritarastra and pandu.
One day Pandu went on a hunting expedition and he shot two deer which were matting, which were actually Rishis in disguise. The Rishi cursed Pandu and said whenever he gets intimate with his Wife he would die as well.Pandu was very disheartened and came back to hastinapura. He told his decision to Bheeshma and Satyavathi to go and live in the forest and lead a life of aesthetics. The entire kingdom of hastinapura is sad except dhritarashtra who feels happy that he is finally officially the king.
Kunti and Madri decide to go with Pandu as well to the forest. Even though Pandu lives with sages, seeks knowledge and teaches Vedas etc. his mind is agitated as he cannot beget an heir. Looking at his condition, Kunti tells him of the boon she received from Sage durvasa. Pandu is very happy to hear this and asks her to use it and help him have an heir. Kunti prays to yama dharma raja the god of death and dharma, he grants her a son who is named as Yudhishthira. The news of Kunti giving birth to Yudhishthira reached the palace of hastinapura everyone is overjoyed with the news except Gandhari and dhritarashtra. At that time Gandhari was pregnant as well. Hearing this news she is saddened and this results in her delivering an embryo prematurely. Sage Vyaasa who is there at the palace at that time, asks the maids to arrange 100 pots and in them he puts medicinal herbs and oils and splits the embryo into 100 pieces and preserves that for some days. After sometime the first pot of embryo grows well the child is taken out. Wolves and owls howled at the birth of this child. Vidhura tells Dhritarashtra that this is a bad omen. But Dhritarastra blinded with love for his son disregards this. This boy is named as Suyodhana or later called as Dhuryodhana's for his evil actions.
Pandu requests Kunti that he wishes to have a few more children. Kunti then prays to the god of wind and the son born with the boon of wind god is named as Bhīma. She gets Arjuna with the boon of God Indre. Kunti pities Madri and shares the mantra with her, with blessings of Ashwini gods she is blessed with Nakula and Sahadeva. Pandu lives happily in the forests with Kunti, Madri and his 5 sons. Gandhari and Dhritarastra have 100 sons and one daughter. Everything is going well in the kingdom of hastinapura.
It was time for our Gita Chanting by Swami Ji, we learnt shlokas 6, 7 from chapter 5, and also we practiced chanting from 1-7 slokas of chapter5. It was time for our Aarthi and pledge and hence we all left for the Prayer hall.
Few Links for learning to chant.
1. Ganesha Panchratnam (Page 30 in My Prayers).
1.1. Link to rendition with lyrics in English https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4lZCKxeJFE or
1.2 Link: https://youtu.be/Oyo0FWP9fB8?si=ZaYVDepNkX0YWShI (play at lower speeds for kids to follow lyrics and hear clearly
2. Nirvana Shatakam (we will handover Printout in December.)
2.1 https://youtu.be/rKx7K13OvQ4?si=lM6g_ZtX0kdF5Sfo - Uninterrupted Line Guided Chant - YouTube
3. Bhagavad Gita Chapter 5 (1-29 shlokas) is available in the 2024-25 year handbook. The handbook was given to all kids. If your child doesn't have a handbook please collect it from the book store.
Please make sure to send the below to every Balavihar class.
1. An empty notebook to write Likhitha jaapa and notes.
2. Two sharpened pencils.
3. Daily Prayers book.
4. Balavihar Handbook
Please join the class WhatsApp group by using the link below
https://chat.whatsapp.com/E0cfUe3NUDYCBwYVKD7tyg
The WhatsApp group will be our primary medium of communication. Please feel free to reach us on our phones/ via WhatsApp or you can reply to this email as well.
With Regards,
Shivram & Anuradha
