HAVAN

Those who are in to serious sadhana have to complete various anushthans. While performing those, HAVAN becomes an important part of it. Generally people take havan just as putting an ahuti in fire and hardly appreciate the details of it. Our ancient Rishis worked deeply on it and devised many techniques, by which to achieve the desired fruit in shortest little time, which they tabulated in our different scriptures. 

Basically havan is a procedure by which ahuti is given to the desired devta and agni acts as carrier in it. Thus in a havan on one side are the three important aspects; Ahuti (material offered to devta), Agni (Carrier of the ahuti) and Devta (recipient of ahuti). The medium which joins the three together is the Mantra.While on the other hand, two representatives (Pandit and Yajman) are there if one is getting the havan done through someone, else sadhak is alone on the other side. Depending upon the desired result, the whole procedure of a havan is established by the knowers of this vidya. Materail of Ahuti, Tongue of Agni to be used and Devta to be invoked for a particular result are to be decided in advance. Thus this whole procedure becomes very interesting to experience. In between observation of the whole procedure during execution is done minutely to infer it is successful or not. Here, one has tried to collect various information, tried to tabulate them for the ease of everyone so that while doing a havan everything is at hand.

Dhyan of agni dev as per scriptures is two faced, seven tongued, 7 arms carrying Fan, mala, Shakti, Cup and  three ladels for ahuti. He is astride a GOAT and is withbeard and jatas which are red in colour. His whole body is red hued and his clothes are also of the colour of fire. It is said when we raise the fire in the havan kund, it eats our ahutis by its seven tongues. Each tongue is meant for certain specialized work. Hence depending upon the result desired, particular tonge is invoked and its poojan done. After that poojan of other tongues is done in clockwise direction respectively since there directions are fixed. Thus table I below shows the particular tongue, its adhidevta and its direction.

Tongues for      Tongues for   Tongues for     Devta      Direction     

Satvik Work      Rajsik Work  Tamsik Work

       1                          2                 3                     4                5

Hiranya               Padmnaga      Vishvmurti           Devta         N-E

Gagana               Suvarna           Sfulingani            Pitr             East              

Rakta                  Bhadrlohita     Dhoomrvarna       Gandharva  S-E

Krishna               Lohita             Manojava            Yaksha       S-W

Suprabha            Shveta             Lohita                  Naag          West

Bahuroopa          Dhoomoni        Karala                 Pishaach     South & North

Atirikta               Kapalika          Kaali                     Rakshas     N-W

Work/Endeavours

6

All kinds of works

Akarshan

Vidveshan

Abhchaar

Ucchatan

Paushtik work

Paushtik and peaceful endeavours.

Once these agni details are finalized then we move to further details regarding sitting posture, hand mudra, season, direction, tattva mantra, nyasa, writing material etc. Since we may have to do certain thing for which season may not be there at any moment. For such a difficulty, our ancient seers divided the day in to different seasons, thus those timmings can be used for replicating a particular season during our havan. The above details are being given in the Table II below.

Hasta Mudra    Karma    Devta  Season Season during the day

     1                  2               3        4                 5

Padm           Peaceful       Rati     Hemant  16hrs after Sunrise for 4hrs

Paash           Vashikaran  Vaani    Basant    4hrs after Sunrise   ,,

Gada            Stambhan   Rama    Shishir    20hrs after Sunrise   ,,

Mooshal       Vidveshan  Jyeshtha Greesham 4hrs after Sunrise   ,,              

Vajra            Ucchatan    Durga    Rains     8hrs after Sunrise     ,,

Khadag         Maaran       Kaali     Sharat   12hrs after Sunrise   ,,       

Tattva         Direction    Day        Beej Nyas     Mantra Nyas    Writing   

                                                                                                        material

     6                7                 8               9                        10                11

Water            NE             ---          Ttham             Granthan             Durva

                                                                                                       With
                                                                                                       Chandan

Agni             North           ---         Vam               Vidarbh                Peacock 

                                                                                                        feath.With 
                                                                                                        rochana

Earth             East          Mon        Lam                Samput               Write with

                                     ,Wed                                                         turmeric.

                                     Shkl.Paksh

                                     5th,10th,
                                     Poornima 

Space     S-W                ---            Ham                Rodhan             Grihdhoom

Air         N-W              Sat,14^th    Yam                 Yog                    Chitangaar

                                    Krishn

                                    -ashtami

                                    Pradosh
                                    -kaal is

                                   best

Fire        S-E                K’tami       Ram                Pallav                  Crow Feather       

                                   On Tue/Sat                                                   ,Ashtvidh  

                                   K’paksh 14^th                                                               Vishta*

                                   No moon 
                                   ,night    

Tattva in Breath         Asan

           12                        13

Water                           Padmasan

Earth                            Swastikasan

Earth                            Viktasan

------                            Kukutasan

Fire                              Vajrasan

Fire                              Bhadrasan

*Droppings of Shyen bird, Chita mool, Vit lavan, milk of Dhatura,

 Grihdhoom, Mareech, Peepal and Saunth.

Apart from this another aspect which is important is the offering of ahuti in fire. Apart from the tongue of agni whole face of agni has been visualized in the havan kund. Offering in different places attracts different results of the havan as detailed below in Table III.

Burning coals represent Fore head of Fire, ahuti in it gives Death.

Smoke represents Nose of Fire, ahuti in it gives heartache.

Where there is less Fire, it represents Eyes of Fire, it gives blindness.

Where wood is seen represents Ears of Agni, it gives deafness.

Where there is raging fire it represents Mouth of Agni, it gives best result.

Generally ahutis are given in the mouth of fire but when certain khatkarmas are done then the places of ahuti are changed as above for different results.

While doing, flame is also to be observed for different things as below:

SHABD/SOUND: Like Bheri(musical instrument) or roar of clouds or trumpet of elephant, all such sounds are auspicious; while that like crow or donkey is in auspicious.

SMELL: like naagkeshar, Champak, Pannag, Yuthika, Padm, indivar, Kalhaar, Ghree, Guggal etc all auspicious. Any kind of bad smell is inauspicious.

FLAME: Dakshinavart, without tremoring, like a Chatra or umbrella-Auspicious

SMOKE: White smoke is auspicious and Black smoke inauspicious.

For using the mantra for specific purposes certain techniques are used which have been tabulated above in Table II. They are being explained here below:

Pallav: In this the name is chanted BEFORE the mantra. It is used for maran, samhar, Ucchatan, removing bhoot-pretas etc.

Yojan: In this name is chanted at the END of the mantra. It is used fro Shanti, Vashikaran, Sammohan, Prayashchit, Deepan. It is also used in Stambhan etc. such works.

Rodh: When mantra is Before or After or in the Middle of name it is called Rodh. It is used in Sammohan. It is used for removing all kids of pains.

Par: When mantra is connected with each letter of the name it is called Par. It is used for peaceful endeavours.

 

Samput: When mantra is added in anulom before and Vilom afterwards then it is called Samput. Such mantra are used for Keelan, Stambhan and Ucchatan etc.

 

Vidarbh: When we use two letters of the mantra and then two letter of Name then again two letters of mantra and two letters of name. Such a sequence represents Vidarbh. It is used for Akarshan or Vashikaran.

Generally in peaceful things we use SWAHA, in poojan we use NAMAH, in Ucchatan we use HUM, in Vidveshan we use VASHAT, in Maran we use PHAT, in Bodhan or Pushti karms we use VAUSHAT, in Vashikaran and Sammohan we use SWADHA.

As per Agni Purana, Mantras Vidya is explained as Below:

Agni Dev giving teaching to Gurudev Vashishthaexplains that depending upon the letters, grading of the mantra is done.

Mantras with more than 20 letters is called MALA mantra.

Mantra with letters from 10 to 20 are called Mantra.

Mantra with letters less than 10 are called BEEJ mantra.

Mantra from letters 1 to 5 are beneficial to everyone and always.They are used for Ucchatan and Vashikararn; For Kshudra kriya or disease removal Female mantras are best used; While in Abhichaar and Vidveshan Neutar mantras are used.

As per MAHAKAPIL and SHRI VIDYARNAV TANTRA, Malamantra are for old people, while MANTRAS are for young people, 5-10 letter mantras are for children. While in BHAIRAVI TANTRA, 7 letter mantras are called BAAL, 8 letter mantra is called KUMAR, 16 lettered mantra is called TARUN, 40 lettered mantra is called PRAUD and more than that are called VRIDHA. As per PRAYOG SAAR, mantras which end with VASHAT and PHAT are called MALE, where VAUSHAT and SWAHA is used they are called FEMALE, where HUM and NAMAH is used they are called NEUTAR.

Mantras are also divided in to two divisions as Agney and Saumya. Where OM is put at the start, they are Agney, where OM is put at the end they are called Saumya. These mantra are repeated in the same time period also i.e Agney mantra are used when our PINGLA is working and Saumya are chanted when IDA working. Mantras in which Om, Ksha, Ra, Ha etc are used more are called Agney and rest are called Saumya. Agney mantra if end with suffix of Namah, they become Saumya. If Saumya mantra are suffixed with PHAT they become Agney.

Mantra should never be chanted when it is sleeping or if it is has just awakened. Now the question becomes when it is sleeping and when it is awake. This should be inferred from the NADI working at the moment. When VAAM nadi or IDA is working, Saumya mantra should be chanted and at this time Agney mantra is sleeping. On the other hand when Pingla is working, then Agney mantra should be repeated and at that time Saumya mantra is sleeping. When both are flowing then both kinds of mantras are awake.

Flow of IDA is active when our LEFT NASAL passage is working and flow of PINGLA is considered active when our RIGHT NASAL passage is working. Mantras having bad Nakshatra, Bad Rashi and which are enemy, they should not be used in jap.

Though the subject is very detailed but here an attempt has been made to familiarize the readers with some basic aspects of havan. For detailed study one may refer to Mantramaharvnav, Agni Puran, Sharda Tilak etc. One sincerely hopes that the effort will go a long way to educate everyone who has interest in it…………………..Om!