The Sun God himself, who is also referred to as Surya Narayana, is worshipped as the presiding deity on Sunday. While this celestial entity represents a host of qualities like conscience, intelligence, individuality, courage, devotion to God, immunity, self-reliance, liberal attitude, honor, trustworthiness, royalty, leadership and fame, he primarily signifies power and authority. Sun is called Surya and is also known by many names, one of which is Ravi and Sunday, the day of the Sun, is known as Ravivar. Though astrology counts the Sun as the prime among the planets, astronomically Sun is not a planet, but is a star, and can be thus be termed as the ‘superstar’ among the planets. He is self luminary and remains the primary source of all energy in the world. Sun is the center of the solar system, which all the other planets revolve around.
It is strongly believed that offering prayers to that particular deity and the planetary god on his or her special weekday would please the deity and help receive their blessings in abundance.
Apart from this, the weekdays are also dedicated to different specific deities. Thus, Monday represents the Moon Tuesday, Mars Wednesday, Mercury Thursday, Jupiter Friday, Venus Saturday, Saturn and Sunday, the Sun. Importance of the 7 Week DaysĮach of the 7 week days actually represents a planet and is named only after them, as per the Hindu system. Also called as Upavas or Vrat, fasting can help cleanse your system and improve your body metabolism. It offers you an opportunity to connect with your favorite deity and purifies your impurities, both external and internal. Fasting has both spiritual and physical benefits for the observer. so that improvements can be made in the future.‘Fasting’ refers to abstaining from food or certain kind of food items as a prayer or tribute to the divine. We would like to take this opportunity to get feedback from the readers on the content, design, frequency of the release etc. We have been running this magazine for 10 months now and will soon be completing a successful one year. This issue also comes with wood burning paintings of SuryA, mahAviShNU, and HanumAn that were drawn by me about 8 years ago. I would like tosincerely thank him for his continued support and effort in making this magazine better and valuable to the upAsakA community. AtmAnandanAthA has penned the Q&A section for this issue. The 101’st janma dina parvA of my pUjya paramaguru shrI pUrNAnandanAthA falls on 2nd Jan 2014. The HanumAn section contains the various mantras of Hanuman, tAntrika mAlAmantras, AvaraNa pUjA krama, ashtottara nAmAvali, and the sahasranAma stOtram. The mahAviShNu section contains the nArAyaNa Upanishad, aShtAkShari mantra japa krama, AvaraNa kramas, and the viShNu AshTottara shlokam. Tamil poems on Surya by Bharatiar and ShrI Elandai Ramasami have been included for readers delight. Since sUrya nArAyaNA is popularly called as a namaskAra priya, the common namaskAra method that can be adopted by everyone on Sundays is also included in this section. mArthAnDa bhairava japa krama and AvaraNa puja is also included. A beautiful picture of mArthANDa bhairva (as described in the sAradA tilakA dhyAna shlokA) is included (thanks to AtmAnandanAthA for sharing this). A complete treatise on sUrya nArAyaNA containing, Upanishads, ashtottaram, sahasranAmam, mantrAs, AvaraNa pUjA paddhathi, and shlOkAs are included.