I remember a teacher in my school days who asked,"You are telling many slokas but they have no meaning. Is it not something funny? Of course, her religion is Christianity and their Holy Script, The Bible can easily be understood when you read it. It is also translated in many languages. Even if you do not get in-depth knowledge in it, you can really understand the basics. In Hinduism, we basically cannot identify only one script as our Holy Script. We have many scriptures like Vedas, Puranas, Upanishads and Bagavath Gita. And all of them are in Devanagari (writing Sanskrit). Almost all of the mantras and slokas that we tell now are in Sanskrit and thats why we do not know their meanings now. When you refer to my previous post "A very basic question" I would have talked about Gurukula education where we studied these vedas and puranas only. So obviously people knew its meaning when they recited the mantras. But gradually, with our adaption of western education system, we stopped learning our scriptures and texts and hence we do not know anything now. Coming back to my teacher's question. At that age, I did not have the mind maturity to answer her back saying "Our Slokas and Mantras all have meaning. Only thing is they are in Sanskrit, which is not a popular language now and hence we do not understand their meaning. Just because we do not understand them, we cannot say that they have no meaning."
Now, everyone of you might have also encountered same question atleast once in your life. Or you could have thought atleast in your mind, We are telling these slokas as a part of our everyday life. But what is the meaning for it? How many of us really know the meaning of "Bhajagovindam" or "Vishnu Sahasranamam" or "Shiva Sthuthi"?
When we talk about Hindu Spritualism and Science, This is one of the major hurdles which is preventing us from knowing many things from our scriptures. If only we know sanskrit, we can understand the meaning. And if only we know the meaning, we can see its application in everyday life and wonder about the knowledge and wisdom of our ancient people. But that is almost impossible.
Luckily, with the improvement of technology, we can find many details in google with one click now. But is it enough? Can we say that all of our scriptures have been translated and even if they are translated, are they in an understandable mode? The answer is probably no. So, what can we do? All that we can do for the time being is we should attempt to learn the meaning of the basic slokas and mantras that we recite in everyday life (Not talking about the bigger or
complicated lenghthy mantras but atleast the basics).
When we attempt to try this and keep continuing this as an ongoing process, we ourselves will know many things one by one. Yes, our mantras are carefully framed and each one has tons of positive energy and vibration, which is once again a science (Secret key to happiness).
Let us learn the meaning of one basic sloka today :
Gajaananam Bootha Ganaathi Sayvitham
Kapitha Jambu Phala saara Bakshitham
Umaa Sutham Shoka Vinaasha Kaaranam
Namaami Vigneshwara Paadha Pankajam
Meaning
Gajaananam - I namashkar Gajananam (who has the face of an elephat)
Bootha Ganaathi Sayvitham - Who is served by the Bhoothas (Bhutha Ganangal)
Kapitha Jambu Phala saara Bakshitham - Who eats the core of fruits (kapitha and jambu are kinds of fruits)
Umaa sutham - who is the Son of Uma (Parvathi)
Shoka vinaasha kaaranam - who is the reason for our sorrows to get destroyed
Namaami vigneshwara paadha pankajam - I bow my head to lord Vigneshwara's lotus feet.
Please refer to this website to know the meaning of some other basic slokas. And let us pass on our hidden gems and secrets to our next generation too... of course, with its proper meaning.
http://www.slokakids.com/index.php?renderpage=slokasflash.html&catgid=8&catgname=Ganesh%20&selecteditempath=http://www.slokakids.com/Slokas_swf_files/Gajaananam%20Slokagajaananam.swf
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