Agnihotra

Check the local sunrise sunset timings from the annual timetable provided for performing Agnihotra. Adjust your watch correctly as per the standard time. Arrange a few pieces of dry cow dung cakes in the Agnihotra pot about 5-10 minutes before the actual sunrise time.

First, take a small piece of the cow dung cake and place it at the bottom of the pot. Now put Gugul, Camphor or a Cotton Wick duly soaked in cow's ghee on the bottom piece and then start arranging the other pieces of cow dung cakes around it neatly. Use a matchstick to light the fire. If necessary, use the fan so that all the pieces are fully ablaze. Take two pinchfuls of clean, unbroken rice grains (raw) on your left palm or in a small dish. Smear these rice grains with a few drops of cow's pure ghee. Divide the ghee smeared rice grains in two parts.

Keep an eye on your watch and sooner its needle touches the exact sunrise time, start uttering the first mantra 'Sooryaya Svaha'. While you start saying 'Svaha' offer one part of the rice grains to the fire. Continue and complete the mantra's first line 'Sooryaya Idam Na Mama'. Start uttering the other line of the mantra, 'Prajapataye Svaha',while offering the other part of the rice grains to the fire after saying and go on to complete the mantra, 'Prajapataye Idam Na Mama'. Concentrate on the fire till the offerings are fully burnt. The morning Agnihotra concludes here. In the evening before the Agnihotra time, remove very carefully the morning Agnihotra ash from the pot and put it in a bag or box specially kept aside for it. Repeating the morning process, prepare a fresh fire from the cowdung cakes in the pot. Also prepare two equal parts of the cow ghee smeared rice grains for the two offerings. Exactly at sunset time, accompanied by the chanting of sunset Agnihotra mantras - 'Agnaye Svaha' offer the first part after saying 'Svaha' and complete the mantra by saying 'Agnaye Idam Na Mama'. Similarly, uttering the second line of the mantra offer other part of the rice grains to the fire after saying 'Prajapataye Svaha' and complete the mantra uttering'Prajapataye Idam Na Mama'. Concentrate on the fire till the offerings are fully burnt. This concludes the evening Agnihotra. MATERIALS REQUIRED: 1. Agnihotra ( Pyramid-shaped ) Copper pot 2. Copper Dish 3. Copper Spoon ( Long ) 4. Copper fork 5. Cow's pure ghee 6. Gugul- Loban ( For igniting Agnihotra fire ) 7. Local sunrise - set timings yearly chart of your place NOTE : 1. Ingredients like cow's ghee or dried cow dung cakes, gugul or camphor can be easily procured locally by you. However we are offering the service of supplying these so as to enable you to commence the practice of Agnihotra at the earliest. 2. Publications and Agnihotra material will be supplied by V.P.P. against confirmed order backed by 50% advance or by Registered post parcel against full payment by M.O./ D.D. All remittances should be in the name of "Veda Agnihotra Centre", Shivapuri, Akkalkot and payable at any nationalised Bank at Akkalkot. S.B.I., Vijaya Bank, Bank of Maharashtra and Bank of India have branches in Akkalkot.

Ayurvedic (Agnihotra) Ghee Preparation: Preparing ghee for Agnihotra is a simple process and one can easily make it in ones own home. The procedure to be followed is as follows - The ghee is prepared from Cow’s milk.  Take the cow milk in a kitchen vessel and heat it slowly on your stove or heater. Allow the milk to cool in the same vessel without keeping any lid. One may use a net to cover it if necessary.  After a few hours a layer of cream will appear on the surface of the milk.  Remove this layer using a spoon and collect it in a separate jar.  Add a little curd to this cream in the jar.  Allow the mixture to stand still.  After about a day the cream in the jar would convert into curd.  Repeat the procedure up to point no. 5 daily by adding cream to the same jar. There is no need to add curd daily; the cream added daily keeps converting to curd.  After about a weeks time when sufficient amount (500 ml to 1 liter )of curd is collected, churn the curd thoroughly in a mixer or with a handheld portable churner. (The vessel used for churning should be sufficiently big to take all the curd and about as much water by volume)  Add water to this and keep churning till butter starts separating on the surface of the liquid.  Carefully collect the soft butter from the surface and put it in a frying pan, while doing this try to keep the liquid from coming in the frying pan. If some liquid does carry over in to the frying pan you can separate it by squeezing the butter with the open palm of one hand and tilting the pan with the other to drain as much liquid as possible.  Wash this butter with water and drain away the water completely as before. Repeat this washing once again.  Heat the butter over slow fire. Continue heating for a few minutes to ensure all the water content evaporates. You can judge this by the colour of the ghee, which becomes golden and the boiling stops.  The Ghee is ready. Allow it to cool and filter it through a fine strainer. Store in a dry jar with a lid.