Chinnapuram village is located around 10 kms from Vizianagaram town. It is a small village on the state highway between Bhubaneswar and Visakhapatnam. Most of the residents of Chinnapuram are not having stable employment or regular incomes. So for the children of the village, our foodrelief programme is always welcome.
This year for Pongal celebrations (called as Makara Sankranti in north India) we distributed 2,000 sugarcane sticks to visitors at our ashram in Chennai. Makara Sankranti is one of the most auspicious days of the year in the Hindu calendar. In South India it is a harvest festival, and traditionally the first rice of the season is boiled and offered to the Sun god in the form of Sakarai Pongal (sweetened rice). It also marks the beginning of Uttarayana, the six month northward movement of the Sun.
On January 9th we celebrated Hanuman Jayanti at our ashram in Chennai, where the presiding deity is of Sri Panchamukha Hanuman. From morning till evening around 5,000 devotees visited for darshana of Lord Hanuman. Bhajans were sung by devotees, and prasadam was distributed to all of the guests throughout the day.
Dear friends and devotees,
Tomorrow (Saturday, January 9th, 2016) is Hanuman Jayanti according to the Tamil calendar. We invite all the devotees who are living in Chennai to visit our ashram at Tharamani for Hanuman Jayanti celebrations. Morning abhishekam to Lord Hanuman will begin at 7 am, followed by yaagam and bhajanai. The temple will be open for darshanam from 5am till 10 pm.
Dear friends and devotees,
This week the city of Chennai was hit with severe flooding which resulted in most of the city being inaccessible. Our ashram is located in the south of Chennai at Tharamani, which was also heavily affected by the floods. For the last 5 days there has been no electricity, and food and drinking water were hard to come by.
With the end of Kartika month approaching, the last five days, known as Bhishma Panchaka, are considered very auspicious for worshipping Lord Krishna. As such, our Jagannatha temple in Bhadrak always sees a large increase in the attendance by devotees for the evening arati during these last five days, culminating in Kartika Purnima.
Vamana, Vasu and Yamuna eating cauliflower leaves together.
We first began our goshala in 2013 when Vamana the bull was donated to our temple in Orissa, by a local villager. He had been coming to our temple every day for two years prior to that and we had been feeding him every day. After some time he didn’t want to go home and was spending all his time at our ashram. Seeing this, the owner agreed to donate him to the temple, and that was the beginning of our goshala.
We would like to share with you some pictures of the yearly rice harvest at Dayalu Baba’s ashram. This is the second year that we have helped this ashram to produce rice and vegetables so that they can move towards being self-sufficient.
The following pictures are of Lord Jagannatha in Hati Vesha on Snana Purnima at Bhaktivedanta Ashram’s Jagannatha temple in Bhadrak, Orissa.
Last month devotees from the Bhaktivedanta Ashram organized the annual Makara Sankranti festival at Dayalu Baba’s Ashram. This is the fourth year that we have helped to organize the festival. This year, for the three days of the festival, we fed over 5,000 devotees who came from all the nearby villages. For all three days there was nonstop cooking and distribution of spiritual food from 9 am till 9 pm.