Dear Sri Anbil:
Where does one find the size restrictions on Saaligramam
for worship?
Why is it that Saligramams have to come from the Riverbed of
GanTaki?
Neelameggham
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SrI:
Dear Sri
neelamegham
Saalagraama is the one among the eight swayam vyaktha
kshethrams. Of the swayam vyakhtha sthalams, Saalagramam is said to be the most
important. It is 60 miles west of Kathmandu and is on the bank of thr river
Gandaki. This is on the way to Mukthee Narayana khsethram which is 100 miles
off.
Why this river?
The Gandaka rises in the Saptha Gandaki or
Davalagiri range of the Himalayas which is the southern boundary of Central
Tibet, and enters the plains at a spot, called Tribent Ghat. This source of the
river is not far from Saalagrama which was the hermitage of Bharatha and Pulaha.
The temple of Mukthinatha [Sriman Narayanan] is on the south of Saalagramam.
Hence the river is called also Saalagrami and Narayani..
The real and
most expensive Saalgrama are found only in one place at the bottm of the Gandaki
River, in Nepal, one of the main tributaries of the Sacred Ganges. Some of them
are perforated by nature along with their axis; others have all sorts of figures
similar to carvings on them, such as Sudharsana or chakra.
the
formulation is attributed by students of natural science to some species of
fish. the fish it is said, selects a small stone, nestles up to it closely and
then begins to spin, a nest or a shell for itself, the material for which it
emits like a spider out of its own organism. Having been imeersed in the shell
for sometime and feeling the tediuosness of solitude the fish breaks the shell
and swims away; the shila and shell then thus turn into Saalagrama.
Agamas and Saasthras say that Lord VishNu is dwelling in these
Saalagrama silas.
This is the extract from english translation written
in Sri Madhuranthakam Swami malar [Sri madhurakusumaanjali]
Regards
Namo Narayana
dAsan madhavakkannan