This
new moon day (aunshi) of the lunar month of Bhadra (Aug. 20) is
celebrated in Nepal as Fathers' Day - 'looking on father's face
day'. On this day living fathers are honored with gifts and
reverence, and the souls of deceased fathers are propitiated with the
traditional shraddha ceremony of offering pindas, small pastry balls of
rice and barley flour, which are
The most
auspicious place for performing these ceremonies is at the great Shiva
temple of Gokarneshvara on the bank of the Bagmati in the north of this
Sacred Valley.
The power of
this lingam, established by Brahma out of a portion of the horn of
Pashupati-Shiva, who gamboled as a one-horned, three-eyed deer in the
forests of the Valley, is so great that Ravana,
the formidable
demon of the Ramayana, gained dominance over the three worlds by
undergoing fierce austerities here. He performed a fire
sacrifice, and every 10000 years he would chop off one of his heads (he
had ten of them), and place it in the sacrificial fire. When he
about to cut off his last head, Brahma intervened, and granted him a
boon of (virtual) invincibility, against every kind of adversary,
except a human one. It took the intervention of the Rama
avatar of Vishnu, who just happened to be a man, to put an end to
Ravana's shenanigans.
So, honor thy
father wherever he may be.
Love and Pranams,
Billy
