Ashtottaram 17

 

  17) OṀ NAMASKĀRA  BHŨMYAINAMAH:

OṀ (AUM) - NA -MA - SKAA- RA - BHOO- MYAI-

- NA--MA- HA

 

(Namaskāram: means 'salutations', 'to bow', 'reverential obeisance', and greetings)

 

When we come across elderly or respectable people like our teachers, automatically we salute them with our both hands kept together. No one has to teach you that because it's our culture and tradition. The śanskrit root verb "nam" means 'to bow.' Namaskāram means to bow our head in front of the person. By doing that we not only are showing respect to them but also showing our humility with obedience. That means we are not showing ego or arrogance toward them. There is also very deep spiritual meaning when we combine both hands to salute others, reminding them monism from duality. Not only with hands but we greet them verbally 'namaskāram'. There are many symbolic meanings to offer namaskāram. One of them being- 'I pray to the God within you.'

 

Unfortunately our Indians are following western culture to the core. When they see elders and respectable people they are greeting them by saying 'hello' sometimes even worse and say 'hi' and shake their hands. By doing that they feel cool and great thinking that they are stylish and cultured. When we look at this fashion of shaking hands there is a possibility of getting their hand germs. This is only one of thousands of examples to show how our younger generations are westernized.

 

Our āgamasāstrās, dharma śāstrās, and purāṇās have mentioned many ways and means on how to show respect to elders. However you may greet them, symbolically they all mean to show respect to them. There are many ways one can perform namaskāram and it varies from one situation to the other. There are different names like-'Abhivandanam', 'Praṇāmam' and 'Anjali', etc. For God, teacher, spiritual guru, and parents we offer prostrations.  We also circumambulate in clockwise around a temple.

 

When we traditionally greet elders, usually they offer their blessings saying 'swasti', 'vardhasya', 'subhambhuyat' or 'āyushmānbhava', etc. If it is newlywed couple, the elders bless them with 'putra pautrābhi vruddhirastu', if it is a woman-'dērghasumangaḷībhava'. Hindus strongly believe that the blessings of the elders are nothing but God's blessings to them.

 

The greatness of endowing this honorable word and symbol of 'namaskāram' to the world belongs to our nation and it is "Namaskāra Bhūmi."

 

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