In this endeavour I would like to thank the following people who made the Knowledge Transformation and Document Management (KTDM) possible. I am still learning the Suktam and I hope in this year, this Suktam will form an integral part of my daily prayers. The text which I had was in telugu and I sat together with two others to translate that entirely into english and ensured that we get the right pronounciation by listening to the audio as well. Though as a woman I don’t have the Sandhya Vandanam ritual, I can still chant it. I was inspired after reading the book to learn the Aghamarshana Suktam and recite it daily. This prayer is an important part of Sandhya Vandanam. It is a very powerful Suktam which invokes Divine blessings and which when recited daily removes impurities from one’s mind and makes it pure. Part of SandhyaVandanam is the prayer called “Aghamarshana Suktam” which literally means prayer to destroy impure and sinful tendencies, mistakes etc. If you want to learn the intent of the ritual or expand on your knowledge of Sandhya Vandanam, it is very beneficial to read this chapter. It is a very valuable chapter which in detail covers the process of Sandhya Vandanam, its purpose and necessity and also inclused some techniques and secrets that Pujya Swamiji himself has learnt from elderly saints etc. In this book, there is a chapter dedicated to “Sandhya Vandanam”. When I last met Swamiji, he blessed me with that book. You may need to contact the Swami Akhandananda Maharaj ashrama in Vrindavan for Hindi copies, or contact the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam if they have copies of the telugu books. I don’t know where the Telugu or original Hindi book are available. This book has been translated into Telugu by Sri Swami Tattvavidananda Saraswati ji. It is a collection of articles focusing on Vedanta, Sadhana, Spirituality, Brahman etc. It is originally in Hindi written by Puja Sri Swami Akhandananda ji Maharaj – a great renowned sage and contemporary of Swami Sivananda ji Maharaj. I was reading a book last year called “Brahmanubhuti”. We need to understand the essence of any ritual which we perform, otherwise it becomes monotonous and routine and limits the benefits we may reap out of it. 6 in search of a guru for the author of this post, learning rig veda was.
Sandhya Vandanam, if sincerely performed, is an integral part of Sadhana and reconnects one with the Divine. listen rhigveda sandhyavandanam exclusive only on anand audio devotional channel.
I think most of the men in Indian Hindu families perform this, though now-a-days the situation might be different. In our tradition, there is a ritual of “Upanayanam” or thread ceremony when a boy is initiated into Gayatri Mantra and is taught the process of Sandhya Vandanam – invoking the Divine and peforming oblations at dawn, mid-noon and dusk.