August 28 1987

Description

First Ever Documented Festival, Ganesh Chaturthi, Organized by The Avatar!

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Transcript

When I was 10 or 12, I conducted the first or at least we can say that, the first available photographs we have, is My public enriching activity, is the Ganapathi Chaturthi, Ganesh Chaturthi, I conducted in Tiruvannamalai, when I was 10 or 12. If you see even the photographs of that time and if you talk to the people, reminiscence of the people, who were with Me volunteering, the first batch of Kailasa Volunteers. If you talk to all of them, you can see very clearly, you can get it from them, the details - first collecting donation. Whoever gave, we had our own notebook, in that we noted down and all the expense is done properly, like making a pandal and paying for the musician, buying the sandalwood paste and doing all the rituals properly and conducting the pooja. After the pooja is done, taking the prasadam in bicycle, going to home to home whoever donated, distributing that prasadam to all and then finally bringing the accounts and remaining we had little money and with that money and that accounts paper, the whole thing was put into Arunachaleshwara temple Hundi as offering, surrender of the whole thing. I think, maybe we had some 75 paise or something remaining money, after all the expenses over. With that money, with the accounts slip, We offered the whole thing to Arunachaleshwara temple Hundi.

Witnesses Share on the Divine Leela of Ganesha Chathurti

Excerpts from an Interview with Sampath

Sampath recalls His first meeting with The Avatar when they were both attending the VDS Jain School in around the 8th grade. His first memory of HDH was, “a bright face with holy ash smeared on the forehead”, an iconic marker for The Avatar which remains the same throughout His life like everything else. Sampath goes on to remember: The first day itself I got a chance to sit next to Him. Soon after prayer got over, we went to the classroom. I didn’t have to search for a place. He used to sit neither too much in front nor too much in the back - in the third or fourth row. He made me sit next to Him. All the students had fixed places, but somehow He organized things and arranged for me to sit next to Him. From that day onwards, till 10th grade, whichever class or classroom we went to, I would sit next to Him only.

On the very first day, Sampath recalls having a conversation with The Avatar about their similar interests. He explains, “My mother used to offer to Lord Ganesha every day at home. She used to ask me to sit with her for offering. She would read Vinayagar puranam – verses on Lord Ganesha, on Divine Mother. So when I saw Swami doing similar things, I would tell him all that my mother used to do, worship at home. When He heard all that, He developed an instant attachment to me.”

He asked, ‘Do you have Ganesha deity in your house? I have a separate Ganesha deity.’ And He showed me His deity. I said that we too had and showed Him our’s. Then He said, ‘Both of us have everything in common! Let us both do everything together hereafter!’ So any activity, we both would do together thereon.

Organizing Ganesh Chaturthi, the first ever documented public meeting organized by The Avatar for the revival of ShriKailasa In these pictures, the banyan tree is seen inside the Arunachaleshwara temple, under which this particular Ganesha deity resides. There are several constructions which happened later in this area but this is the exact area where The Avatar conducted the first documented festival of ShriKailasa.

There is one Ganesha deity in the circumambulation area of the Arunachaleshwara Temple in Tiruvannamalai . He sits under a banyan tree. When we saw Him, we felt He was a grand one and we should decorate Him. He is in the outer fourth concentric circumambulation of the temple. He had an artistic look about Him. He was about 3 feet in height. Swami said, ‘We should conduct a function for Him.’

We decided we should collect money for it, that we should put up a thatch roof covering over Him and conduct it like a regular function. He said we should not just perform holy bath and leave it but since he is inside the temple, we should do it in a grand fashion. We asked Him what if the temple priests got angry at our activities with the Ganesha. He told us, ‘They will not get angry. We have been doing these kinds of things for some time now.’ We said, ‘But we were doing only outside the temple. Now we have entered the temple itself.’ We were quite scared. He told us, ‘Who is going to come here and scold us? If they say something, we will simply leave everything and run away! Don’t worry.’ But we pacified ourselves saying it is anyway our area, so it is alright.

We never asked the temple priest permission to do these things. We collected everything right from the different holy bath powders and performed the holy bath. We planned completely for the entire function. In the morning – holy bath. After a half hour gap, in the afternoon, sandal paste decoration. In the evening, lit-camphor offering. For the camphor offering we decided we would invite all the elders in our respective houses. Likewise, after the holy bath, there was decoration. Then in the evening we called the persons who would put up tents and they put up a tent. Senthil’s father had a shop inside the temple. At that time the odal miraas - the man in-charge of maintaining the traditional temple odal drums and controlling the odal drummers - used to eat in Senthil’s father’s shop. We requested him, and he sent two odal drummers!

Then we thought, we have arranged for so much, we should call the officials of the temple! We took a white sheet of paper and wrote out an invitation. We didn’t want to print because it would cost us money. We wrote: In this date, in this place, there has been the holy bath ceremony and sandal paste decoration for Ganesha. We request you to kindly come and receive the blessings of Ganesha. Yours sincerely, the boys of this temple. We took the letter and went straight to the office. The officer happened to be my relative’s neighbor so I knew him. When he saw me, he asked how come I was there. I told him I belonged to Tiruvannamalai. He was happy to hear it. His son used to play with me when we were younger. That boy was with him. He said he would send his son for our function! How would the officer come for a function of small boys’? But we invited him with such enthusiasm! We also put in a word that we wished to have the odal drummers play for our function. He reinforced our request to the odal drummers!