Who am I?

Ramana's Who Am I?.


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On Sandhya Worship

While browsing through the archives of advaitin list, I came across a beautiful dialogue between a devotee and HH Sri Chandashekara Bharati on Sandhya Worship. It is long, but should be read by anyone interested in the ancient meditation practice of Sanatana Dharma. Also, people interested in meditation would benefit from by reading it. Further, the dialogue gives an idea on how teaching is done in Sanatana Dharma in a progressive way, with concrete answers to seekers at different levels of maturity, leaving no one with a sense of missing the big point. I am reproducing it in the full.

A touring Educational Officer once met His Holiness and said,

"I have occasions of being in constant touch with young boys, mostly Brahmanas, studying in schools which I have to inspect. I have found that even the boys who perform their sandhya do so more as a form than as real worship. I shall be very grateful if Your Holiness would give me some valuable hints which I could convey to them"

I am very glad to see that you are not content with mere official routine of inspection but desire to utilise the occasion for the betterment of the boys. It will be well if all educationists, inspecting officers or teachers, realise that they have been entrusted with the very grave responsibility of training up young men in the most impressionable period of their lives. In my opinion they are really to blame if they confine their attention only to the prescribed text books and neglect the spiritual side of the young generation.

I always keep that end before me and I don't miss any opportunity of talking to the boys and giving them some useful advice. It is mainly with a view to do that work better that i request Your Holiness to give some practical suggestions.

Even if the boys to whom you propose to convey such suggestions may not benefit by them, you will certainly be benefited.

Certainly.

You may therefore, for the present, ignore the boys and ask such questions the answers to which are likely to be useful to you.

The first question which suggests itself to me is with reference to the sandhya worship. What is the deity or upasya devata in the sandhya Worship?

Before we consider that, please tell me what you understand ordinarily by the sandhya worship?

By sandhya worship we mean the worship of the rising Sun, the setting Sun or Sun in the mid heavens.

Quite so. Comprehensively speaking, you mean worship of the Sun?

Yes.

You tell me that sandhya is the worship of the Sun and yet you ask me what is worshipped in the sandhya. Don't you think it is an unnecessary question?

Put so, it may seem an unnecessary question, but my real question is, what is the Sun that is worshipped?

What do you understand ordinarily by the Sun?

We mean the bright celestial orb in the sky.

Then it is that bright celestial orb that is worshipped.

But that orb is, according to science, mere inert matter in a state of high combustion and is certainly not worthy of being worshipped by intelligent beings like ourselves. It can neither hear our prayers nor respond to them. I cannot believe that our ancestors were so ignorant as to address their prayers to a mere burning mass of matter

I quite agree with you. They could never have been so foolish.

What then did they see in the Sun to justify their prayers being addressed to it?

You said just now that addressing of prayers to inert matter cannot be justified by reason.

Yes.

What then must be the nature of the entity to which a prayer is addressed?

The primary condition is that it must not be mere inert matter, but must be endowed with intelligence.

And the second condition?

That it must be able to hear our prayers and be powerful enough to answer them.

Quite so. If our ancients were not fools and yet addressed their prayers to the Sun, their conception of the Sun must have been quite different from that of mere inert matter, in a state of high combustion.

Yes, they must have also postulated of it intelligence, the capacity to hear us and the ability to help us.

The 'us' including not only all those who are now living to raise their hands in prayer to the Sun, but also the generations, past and future, infinite in number though they may be?

Of course.

The entity that is worshipped as the Sun is therefore one whose intelligence or ability knows no limitation of space or time.

It must be so.

You have now got your answer to the question as to who is worshipped in the sandhya? It is an intelligent Being, omniscient and omnipotent in the matter of hearing and responding to its votaries.

Your Holiness then means that it is a deva who has his habitation in the solar orb?

Quite so. He has not only his habitation there, but the solar orb itself is his physical body.

Your Holiness means that the deva enlivens the solar orb, just as we do our physical bodies?

Just so.

If then he is embodied just like us, how does he happen to have such high intelligence or power as to merit our obeisance?

He attained that status by virtue of the appropriate karma and upasana done by him in a previous life.

Does Your Holiness mean that he was at one time just like ourselves and that he attained that status by his endeavour?

Yes.

Then he is no more than a jiva, which I aIso am. Why should a Jiva make prostration before another Jiva, howsoever superior?

Why should your son or pupil respect you and why should you show respect to your superior officers? Are not both of you jivas?

No doubt we are. But we respect our superiors as it is in their power to help us or injure us, if they so desire.

That is a very low kind of respect. Anyhow, taking even that kind of respect, we must respect Surya devata if it is in his power to help us or injure us, if he so desires.

Of course.

Being a jiva as much as your superior officers, he will help you if you appeal to him for help or injure you if you ignore or despise him. In your own interest then, you are bound to worship him and secure his goodwill.

But 1 need not court the favour nor fear the displeasure of my superior officer, if I carry out the duties of my office faithfully.

Quite so.

If I preserve that attitude, there is no reason why I should propitiate my superior officer

Certainly not.

Similarly, if l carry out strictly the duties enjoined on me by the sastras, I need not propitiate any other jiva, be he the highest devil.

Quite so.

Then, should I not give up the worship of Surya devata?

Certainly you may, unless of course such a worship is part of the duties enjoined on you by the Sastras.

How can that be?

It is true that an honest and strict officer in performing the duties of his office need not mind the pleasure or the displeasure of his immediate superior. But the mere fact that he thinks it necessary or obligatory to perform those duties properly, shows that he has as the ultimate end the pleasure, or avoidance of the displeasure of a still higher officer who is superior to him as well as to his immediate superior. Even if he has no personal acquaintance with that higher officer, he always has in the background of his mind an undefined power, call it the King or the Government, when he performs the duties of his office. And that power has the ability to benefit him by a recognition of his services or to punish him by taking note of his delinquencies. Further, that power rules both him and his immediate superior officer. If therefore that power requires him to behave in a particular manner towards his superior officer, he cannot afford to disobey that injunction, for if he disobeys, not only does he incur the displeasure of that officer but also of the higher power.

That is so.

Similarly, if a power which rules both you as well as Surya devata requires you to conduct yourself in a particular manner towards that deva, you cannot afford to neglect that injunction, but must conform to it or take the risk of incurring the displeasure of that deva as also of the higher power.

It is no doubt so. But in that case, in prostrating myself before Surya devata, I shall be really worshipping the higher power even when my worship may seem addressed to the Surya.

What of that?

If I am able to conceive of such a higher power who rules even the Surya, that power is really the worshipped entity although to all appearances the worship is addressed to the Surya only.

Quite so.

But Your Holiness said that it, was Surya devata who was worshipped?

Yes. It is correct so far as persons who are not able to conceive of a higher power are concerned. To those however who can conceive of that power, He is the real upasya. That power is called Hiranyagarbha. He enlivens and ensouls not only the Surya, but all devils. He enlivens and inhabits not only the solar orb but all things. He is the cosmic personality who is the soul of all things.

I suppose just as we have the sense of I 'in our physical bodies, so does that cosmic personality has the sense of "I" in the entire cosmos.

He has.

If so, the difference between Him and me lies not in the presence or the absence of the sense of 'I' but only in the degree, the range or the magnitude of that sense. Mine is restricted, His is extended.

It is so.

if it is the sense of "I" that is responsible for the concept of a Jiva, he must be as much a jiva as myself

Quite so. In fact He is called the First Born.

Then, even if this higher power happens to belong to the category of Jivas, just like myself, the same objection which I mentioned against the worship of Surya devata holds good in his case also.

What then would you like to worship?

A transcendent power which is not a jiva.

Have it then that it is such a transcendent power that is worshipped in the sandhya. We give Him the name of lswara, the Lord, or the antaryami, the inner ruler.

But I have heard it mentioned that the terms Lord' and Ruler' are only relative terms which are used in regard to Him when we want to describe Him in relation to the universe, which is 'lorded over 'or 'ruled' by Him.

Yes, it is so.

It cannot be that we can have no conception of him apart from his relationship of some sort to the universe. His relationship to the universe can at best be only an extraneous circumstance. In His essence, He must have an independent existence quite unrelated to anything else.

You are right. We call that unrelated essential existence Brahman.

If it is so, that must be the real object of worship rather than the relative aspect called lshwara.

It is even as you say. It is really the unqualified Brahman that is worshipped in the sandhya.

I cannot really understand Your Holiness. You first said that it was the solar orb that was the objector worship, but when I pointed out that it was only inert matter, you said that it was Surya devata that was the object of worship; when again I pointed out that he was only a limited jiva like myself, you said it was Hiranyagarbha, the cosmic soul, that was the object of worship: when once again I pointed out that he was after all a jiva, however cosmic his sense of 'I' may be, you said that lswara the Lord and Ruler of the universe was really the object of worship; and lastly when I said that even he is but a relative aspect of Brahman, you said that the object of worship was Brahman itself

I did say so.

But I fail to see how all these statements can be reconciled.

Where is the difficulty?

The object in a particular worship can be only one. How can it be the solar orb or the deva enlivening it or Hiranyagarbha or Iswara or Brahman at the same time?

I never said that it was the solar orb or the devil and so on.

Does Your Holiness mean to say then that the object of worship is the solar orb and the devil and Hiranyagarbha and Iswara and Brahman all put together?

Nor did I say anything of that sort.

How then am I to understand Your Holiness' statements?

When did I tell you that the upasya was Surya?

When I mentioned that the physical mass of burning matter cannot be the object of worship.

Before you mentioned it, I said that it was even that mass that was the upasya.

Yes.

I never mentioned that it was the solar body or the deva as an alternative. To one who cannot conceive of an enlivening soul, the upasya is the physical mass; to one, however, who declines to accept inert matter as an object of worship, I said the upasya was Surya devata. The upasya is ever one, but its exact nature varies with the competence of the worshipping aspirant. The upasya gets further refined when even the concept of a devata does not satisfy the enquiring devotee. We say then that it is Hiranyagarbha. When even such a concept seems meagre or unsatisfactory, we tell the devotee that he is really worshipping the Supreme Lord himself When he begins to feel that even the Lord-ness is a limitation of His essential nature, we tell him that it is the infinite Brahman itself that is really worshipped. Where is the difficulty?

Does Your Holiness then mean that it is not possible to definitely say what the object of worship in the sandhya is except with reference to the mental equipment or intellectual advancement of the worshipper?

How can there be an object of worship if we ignore the worshipper? The nature of the worshipped necessarily depends upon the nature of the worshipper.

How?

Take me for example. All of you show me respect. But the object of respect, though it is, roughly speaking, myself, does differ with each one of you. Ordinary people respect me and like to see me surrounded by glittering paraphernalia; their attention and respect are claimed by those articles rather than by my personality. Such people will show the same respect to others who have similar paraphernalia. Their homage is not therefore really paid to me but only to the paraphernalia. Some others respect me for the position that I hold or for the Asrama in which I am. Such people will equally respect others who are or may come to be in such a position or in such an Asrama, their homage is therefore not paid to me but to my position or to the Asrama. And some others may not care what position I hold or in what Asrama I am, but give me homage wherever I go and however I may be; their object of respect is my physical body. A few others will not mind if my body is dark or ugly or even diseased, but will nevertheless give me homage if by purity of mind and character or by the power of my intellect and learning or by any spiritual merit that I may possess I command their respect. Very few indeed will respect me for the spark of divine intelligence which inheres in me, as it does in all of you.

Of course it is not possible to say that all the devotees that approach Your Holiness are of the same mental equipment.

Quite so. But, ordinarily all these people, whether they really tender homage to the paraphernalia or to my status and Asrama or to my body or to my mind or to my intellect or to the divine spark in me, prostrate before me to show their respect. Can you tell me, apart from any reference to the several devotees, to whom or to what they prostrate?

It is no doubt very difficult to answer

Similarly, with every kind of worship. Externally viewed, there will be no appreciable difference between the one who respects me for the paraphernalia and another who respects me for the divine spark in me. Externally viewed, there will similarly be no appreciable difference between the devotee who in his blind faith is content to address his prayers to the luminous Sun and another who turns to it as a visible symbol of the infinite Brahman. The question as to what is the upasya in the sandhya worship can therefore be answered only in this way.

I now understand how in the simple worship of the Sun all possible stages in spiritual perception have been provided for

It is not only this, for you will find if you consider the matter still further, that all the three ways known as karma, bhakti and Gyana have been given places in the daily worship, but that is a different matter. Simple as the sandhya worship seems to be, it is sufficient to help us on to the highest stages. It is as useful to the highest aspirant as it is to the beginner. It is a folly, therefore, to belittle its value or to neglect it in practice.

At the beginning, I had hinted at progressive teaching employed in Sanatana Dharma. Even beyond the profound example of HH Sri Chandashekara Bharati holding the hand of the questioner, and leading him to realize the essence of Sandhya on his own, is the example of how the Sandhya worship itself is designed, so that its regular practice leads the seeker to realize the higher reality in a progressive manner. Beautiful, isn't it!
[PS: This was originally posted on 12/13/07 at 9:04AM.]
Om Tat Sat! Read the rest of this entry >>

Random Acts of Violin

[Regular programming of silence would be interrupted for the following piece about of course, music.]

If a great musician plays great music but no one hears it . . .

Go read the wonderful essay titled Pearls Before Breakfast in the Washington Post. It will make you wonder.

[Link -- and as noticed by me later, material too -- thanks to Atanu's post.] Read the rest of this entry >>

Thoughts about the AUEE deparment

In an excellent post, SJ recounts some of the experiences he had in the EE department of AU. That is, when the department was in its heydays. I cannot agree with the post more. Read the rest of this entry >>

On Having No Head: Douglas Harding

I have read the book On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious by Douglas Harding, sometime back. Like many Zen concepts, the title is both mysterious and informative at the same time.

This very short book (120 pages: with 12pt font and 1.5 spacing) talks about the experience of realization by Douglas Harding. It (the concept of realization) is explained to a modern day human being with western background using the simplest of Buddhist -- mainly from Zen -- concepts. As the title implies, the essence is in "experiencing" headlessness, with the emphasis on experience. Just like many Zen koans, the book carries the essence in the first few pages. All these reasons make the descriptions in the book simple and striking.

Though I am yet to read the book completely, I felt I need not push myself to do so. I found that couple of first chapters contain the crux of the experience of the author. (This is probably why I could not push myself to complete the book.) I also feel that the two ways of experiencing realization are when you experience zero (shunyata) or you experience infinity (purnata).

The following is the first chapter. I found that there is no point highlighting some part of the text. The text is very short, cohesive and all the text is equally important.

The best day of my life -- my rebirthday, so to speak -- was when I found I had no head. This is not a literary gambit, a witticism designed to arouse interest at any cost. I mean in in all seriousness: I have no head.

It was when I was was thirty-three that I made the discovery. Though it certainly came out of the blue, it did so in response to an urgent inquiry; I had for several months had been absorbed in the question: what am I? The fact that I happened to be walking in the Himalayas at the time probably had little to do with it; though in that country unusual states of mind are said to come more easily. However that may be, a very still, clear day, and a view from the ridge where I stood over misty blue valleys to the highest mountain range in the world, made a setting worthy of the grandest vision.

What actually happened was something absurdly simple and unspectacular: just for the moment I stopped thinking. Reason and imagination and all mental chatter died down. For once, words really failed me. I forgot my name, my humaneness, my thingness, all that could be called me or mine. Past and future dropped away. It was as if I had been born at that instant, brand new, mindless, innocent of all memories. There existed only the Now, that present moment and what was clearly given in it. To look was enough. And what I found was khakhi sleeves, terminating sideways in a pair of pink hands, and a khaki shirtfront terminating upwards in -- absolutely nothing whatever! Certainly not a head.

It took me no time at all to notice that this nothing, this hole, where a head should have been, was no ordinary vacancy, no mere nothing. On the contrary, it was very much occupied. It was a vast emptiness vastly filled, a nothing that found room for everthing -- room for grass, trees, shadowy distant hills, and far above them snow-peaks like a row of angular clouds riding the blue sky. I had lost a head and gained a world.

It was all, quite literally, breathtaking. I seemed to stop breathing altogether, absorbed in the Given. Here it was; this superb scene, brightly shining in the clear air, alone and unsupported, mysteriously suspended in the void, and (and this was the real miracle, the wonder and delight) utterly free of "me", unstained by any observer. Its total presence was my total absence, body and soul. Lighter that air, clearer that glass, altogether released from myself, I was nowhere around.

Yet in spite of the magical and uncanny quality of this vision, it was no dream, no esoteric revelation. Quite the reverse: it felt like a sudden waking from the sleep of ordinary life, an end to dreaming. It was self-luminous reality for once swept clean of all obscuring mind. It was the revelation, at long last, of the perfectly obvious. It was a lucid moment in a confused life-history. It was a ceasing to ignore something which (since early childhood at any rate) I had always been busy or clever or too sacred to see. It was naked, uncritical attention to what had all along been staring at my face -- my utter facelessness. In short, it was all perfectly simple and plain and straightforward, beyond argument, thought, and words. There arose no questions, no reference beyond the experience itself, but only peace and quiet joy, and the sensation of having dropped an intolerable burden.

In the next chapters, Harding takes the concept further and gives vivid details of what happened to him after experiencing headlessness. Also he explains various levels of headless ways. The website The Headless way also has nice information about the experience. The videos are also good.

The following are a set of good "koanistic" quotations from the book:

• Suppose a man were all of a sudden to make his appearance here and cut your head off with a sword! -- HUI-CHUNG
  
• Behead yourself! ... Dissolve your whole body into Vision: become seeing, seeing, seeing! -- RUMI
  
• My Soul has been carried away, and usually my head as well, without my being able to prevent it. --ST.TERESA
  
• Cover your breast with nothingness, and draw over your head the robe of non-existence. --ATTAR
  
• Give yourself utterly ... Even though the head itself must be given, why should you weep over it? --KABIR
  
• Seeing into Nothingness - this is the true seeing, the eternal seeing. -- SHEN-HUI
  
• "I think I'll go and meet her," said Alice ... "You can't possibly do that," said the Rose. "I should advise you to walk the other way." This sounded nonsense to Alice, so she said nothing but set off at once towards the Red Queen. To her surprise, she lost sight of her in a moment. -- Through the Looking Glass.
  
• The soul has now no awareness of the body and will give herself no foreign name, not man, not living being, nor anything at all. -- Plotinus
  
• After the body has been cast off to a distance like a corpse, the Sage never attaches himself to it. -- Sankara
  
• If one opens one's eyes and seeks the body, it is not to be found anymore. This is called: In the empry chamber it grows light. Inside and outside, everything is equally light. That is a very favorable sign. -- The secret of the Golden flower.
  
• Vow to acheive the perfect understanding that the illusory body is like dew and lightning. Zen Master Hsu Yun (on his death-bed, in 1959)
  

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Story of Sudhama as narrated by Raja Rao

The princes of Kathiawar, like the Rajputs everywhere, claimed their descent from the sun and the moon, and belonged to the clan of Sri Rama (the Ikshavakus) or of Sri Krishna (the Yadavs). For, after all, Dwaraka was just around the corner of the peninsula, and that was where Sri Krishna ruled, so that most of the princes of course belonged to the Yadavas, or so they believed. Remember, Sri Krishna married his wife Rukmini at Madhavpur, and that is just down the curve of the bay, and the Yadavs once (and remember too) on that fateful day when they went gambolling to the sacred city of Prabhas Patan and got into a fist-fight, and then to a brawl and then to a real battle, they sent for Sri Krishna.


But he was not to be found -- he'd so planned as to go and lie under a tree (and had not Gandhari cursed that the race of Sri Krishna come to an end) -- and a hunter took Sri Krishna's heel for the head of a deer, and the greatest of Indians thus played the game of even death. He had planned it all, so everything happened according to his intent -- for, for him intent and action were just experience, there was none to act, as it were for he was in action as inaction and in inaction as action.

And so too was that other game of Sri Krishna. He had, while at school, a poor Brahmin companion, Sudhama was his name and he was raggedly miserable. Life had been most ungenerous to him (again it was Sri Krishna's game) -- Sudhama had a wife with a tongue of charcoal cinders and hair made as of rough hemp. When she called, even the street dogs would thgink it was one if their kind talking, and they started answering back. But Sudhama was so patient; he would always speak, when humiliated by his wife, of his friend Sri Krishna who ruled in Dwaraka. "Fine thing to have such a friend. But what does he do for you, you son of tamarind tree hag."

Hearing this morning after morning, Sudhama said one day to his wife: "I go and see Sri Krishna today, this very day."

"Oh yes you will go, you and your cononut-head and bursted-bleak belly, and seeing your tousled hair and bent back and bamboo limbs, even the guards will laugh at you."

"Perhaps you're right," said Sudhama, "but give me please a handful of puffed rice and a piece of molass."

"What for?" She asked.

"Well, when ones goes to see someone, you don't ever go empty handed, do you?"

"A beggar," declared Sudhama's wife, "has no manners," as the buffalo have no courtesies."

"Well, so be it. Give what puffed rice and molass you have to me."

Cursing her stars for such a rice miserable destiny -- that even the little puffed rice she had, she had perforce to give part of it away -- she threw a handful of it to Sudhama's dhoti-edge, broke a piece of molass from the pot, and said with wide-fingered threatening hands: "And don't you come back plain-handed, you cononut-head, after all this. I'll howl till the very spirits in the crematoriums will be frightened. Let's see what your great friend Sri Krishna is going to proclaim and perform for you. I take the name of God and tell you he will have chased out of city."

Sudhama was so accustomed to his wife's tongue and breath, it was as if he heard sound but not meaningful speech. He picked his stick from the corner, and taking the thought of Sri Krishna, he started towards holy Dwaraka. Long was the road to Dwaraka, but such sweetness of love, the trees seemed to open up and spread wide-limbed shade, and cool breezes blew from the northern mountains, and the sea seemed to churn in fervered joy. For when you take the thought of Lord true, all things that seek him rejoice in your rejoicement -- they also wave up and swell with your joy. Sudhama arrived at the city gates and these opened themeselves as if by vestal deities, and even the palace guards did not seem to mind his looks.

"Could you tell His Highness," he begged, "the Lord of Lords, his poor school fellow, the Brahmin Sudhama is at the door?"

"Be so kind as to wait here, Pundit Sir," said the guard politely, and "I'll go tell the Chamberlain."

It was all as if the gods were playing a trick, the Chamberlain seemed just waiting for this event at the door, and Sri Krishna himself, when he heard the news, he had such joy, people could see tears run down his lotus eyes. "Prepare," he commanded, "water to wash my guest's feet." And as Sri Krishna clad in silken blue, his eyes clear as sleep, his gait as if made by the curvature of form when he stood, the washing-stool before him, there he appeared across the courtyard, Sudhama, his boyhood friend. In their high niches the pigeons and parrots began to coo, and the ladies peered from the top apartments at this wondrous happening [You can see this in many a Rajput miniature today.]. Krishna bade Sudhama stand on the ivory stool, and rich with jugs of silver swan-shapen and filled with water, first warm and then cold, and when these were thrown on the Brahmin's withered and dusty feet -- then did Krishna taking the silken hand-cloth from Chamberlain's arm, wipe the friends feet himself. Now Sri Krishna took his friend to the marbled court and before all his noblemen, he said, "Friend, be seated," and showed Sudhama the throne. Could a poor Brahmin occupy such an august seat? No. He would not. Krishna himself sat on a couch beside his friend. They now spoke to each other of all that happened and passed by since their boyhood. They wept and laughed but all around there was as if a wall of luminescent silence. Everything moved in the palace as usual, the noblemen retired to their afternoon siesta, the servants moved with agility and calm, from corner to corner of the palace, the nine diurnal musics sounded, the elephants trumpeted after a good feed, the cows lowed for their returning calves, and when the evening fell a great banquet was laid for the poor Brahmin, Sudhama and he ate as if he was eating his own food, at his home. For, for the first time he was at home himself. Krishna enjoyed munching the puffed rice his friend had brought, and some of it was sent upstairs to Rukmini, and all the palace was given bits of it. It tasted, did this puffed rice, as nothing one has tasted before. It had the delicate saffron smell of Sri Krishna himself. And when the night drums sounded and the meal was over, the hands were washed, the betel leaves served, a carriage was made ready, and beneath the high chandeliers, flower and fruit hangings, as Sri Krishna said farewell to his friend, he embraced him again and again, and they wept. Yes, Sudhama had to go. He had now to go back home. But he'd forgot his promise to his wife. He had asked nothing of Sri Krishna., Pray what can you ask of a friend who is King?

Yet Sudhama was so happy the very mind-picture of Sri Krishna brought him to tears. And when he came nearer and nearer his home, he began however to have fits of fearfulness. What would it be like coming back plain handed? But when the town came it was all a different -- the very walls were shining as if white-washed and much repaired, and when his carriage stopped, his wife stood, a gold plate in her hands, flowers and Kumkum water floating in it, and lighting the lamp of auspiciousness, she welcomed her lord befittingly, and fell at his withered feet. And from that day onwards the city came to be called Sudhamaputi, or the city of Sudhama, but due to the crookedness of people's speech, it became Puri, and later someone added bunder[Bunder means harbour, haven] to it so that today it's called Porbandar, Haven-city.
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