Mundaka Upanishad : Chapter 1: Section 2.3 : Swami Krishnananda

05/04/2019
Chapter 1: Section 2.3.
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Esa vah panthah sukrtasya loke : (1.2.1)

This is the blessedness for you. Here the Mimamsa speaks to you: It is the path of blessedness open to you. All people come. If you recite the Veda mantras properly, perform yajna and offer oblations to the gods, the flames of the sacrifice uniting themselves with the rays of the Sun will take you, by your subtle body, to the glorious realm of Indra’s heaven. So here is an invitation to the heaven of Indra.

Yada lelayate hy arcis samiddhe havya-vahane,
tad ajya- bhavav antaren ahutih pratipadayet
( chraddhaya-hutam ) (1.2.2).

When we perform a havanam, a yajnam, the flames should shoot forth. The fire should not be smouldering, and it should not be smoking. If that is the case, then the yajna is not done properly. Savita is the flaming forth of the heated fire. When the flames move like tongues of fire, lapping hither and thither with a roaring sound, into those tongues of fire coming up from the vigorous burning of the yajna agni we must offer the holy ghee, the clarified butter, between the flames. The offerings are to be poured between the lapping flames. Pratipadayec: This is an instruction as to how we have to conduct yajna.

Yasyagni-hotram-adarsam-apaurna-masam
acatur-masyam-anagrayanam-atithi-varjitam ca,
ahutam-avaisva-devam-avidhina hutam
asaptamams-tasya lokan hinasti (1.2.3).

Here we have a tremendous instruction from the Mimamsa Shastra—Karmakanda gone to its extreme, we may say. It is not enough if we just perform one havan and keep quiet, as an agnihotra, for instance.

The mantra here says that if a person does not, at the same time, together with the performance of agnihotra, also perform the special sacrifices called darsha and paurna masa during the new moon and the full moon, and does not also perform the special offerings required to be done during the four months of the rainy season, and does not also perform the special havan intended to be done during the spring season, and if the havan is performed without guests being fed at the same time during the yajna, and if the flames do not come forth properly and are only smouldering and smoking, and if the feeding of animals, etc., is also not taken care of at the same time, and if the mantras in the yajna are not chanted with the proper intonation and recitation, what will happen?

Seven generations of theirs will be destroyed: asaptamams tasya lokan hinasti.

It is a very terrible curse. It also means that for them, the seven worlds will be destroyed. Bhuloka, Bhuvarloka, Svarloka, Mahaloka, Janaloka, Tapaloka and Satyaloka will expel them and not allow them to enter.

Therefore, imagine how difficult it is to perform a sacrifice, a yajna. If we make a little mistake—a little wrong intonation, a little fumbling, it will break the yajna. Karmakanda is very difficult. If we do it, wonderful; but if we do not do it properly, to hell we go.

To be continued ..