It is often humorously mentioned that there is one relationship that the Lord misses. Since the Lord is the “causeless-cause”, he has no cause and hence no parents, as it were! When we perform a Kalyana utsava for the Lord, in effect, He gets to enjoy the role of being our son!

For us, it is the Lord’s saulabhya that we get the immense pleasure to be His parents when we perform the Kalyana utsavam. It is like the bhaagya that Yashoda enjoyed in being the Lord’s own mother in Krishna avatara. In the Srinivasa Kalyana Mahatmyam, it is said that Yashoda wanted to witness the Lord’s wedding, an opportunity she never had in Krishna Avatara. In effect, she engineered Lord Srinivasa’s wedding to Padmavati and had the opportunity to witness this blissful event. Such is the pleasure of performing or witnessing the Kalyana Utsavam.

As with any ritual, the variety of acts provide a wide canvas for the mind to rest. Our attention is rivetted on the Lord and His consort for the entire duration of the Kalyana utsavam. It enables the mind to develop single-pointedness (ekaagratha). A prepared mind becomes the right vehicle to absorb the teaching (gnyaana) and attain realization (moksha).

Every ritual provides an opportunity to fine-tune the mind for later gnyaana. The kalyana utsavam provides this benefit- a prepared mind, a key prequisite for gnyaana and the resultant fruit of moksha.

Significance of Kalyana utsavam Tirumala

The Lord’s consort is taken as a metaphor for the “jeevathma”, the individual Self. The Lord is the paramathma, the total Self. The jeevathma gets deluded by moha (as Sita did when aspiring for the golden deer) and gets separated from the paramathma. Further, the jeevathma suffers from the tyranny of the ten sense organs which go haywire (as symbolized by Ravana) and gets imprisoned in the ocean of samsara.

To restore the jeevathma back to its rightful owner- the paramathma, we need an acharya, a guru. Hanuman in the Ramayana symbolizes the guru who helps the jeevathma to again unite with the paramathma.

The union of the divine couple can be taken as a symbolic union of the jeeva and the paramathma. The Kalyana Utsavam can be interpreted on these philosophical lines as well. Adi Shankara in the Atma Bodha and Sadashiva Brahmendra in the popular song “khelati mama hridaye” have interpreted the union on these lines.

SEVA:

Suprabhatam

https://www.tirumala.org/Suprabhatam.aspx

Thomala Seva

https://www.tirumala.org/ThomalaSeva.aspx

Archana

https://www.tirumala.org/Archana.aspx

Abhishekam

https://www.tirumala.org/Abhishekam.aspx

The Srinivasa Kalyanam Story

https://www.tirumala.org/srk1.aspx

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