Шығыс Үндістанның Говардхан Матхы және оның рухани ықпалы

Religious institution in Hinduism

Purvamnaya Sri Govardhana Pitham or Govardhan Math is one amongst the four cardinal pithams established by the philosopher saint Adi Shankara to preserve and propagate Hinduism and Advaita Vedanta, the doctrine of non dualism. Located in Puri in Odisha, India, it is the Eastern Āmnāya Pītham amongst the five pithams, with the others being the Sringeri Śārada Pīṭhaṃ (Karnataka) in the South, Dvārakā Śāradā Pītham (Gujarat) in the West, Badari Jyotirmaṭha Pīṭhaṃ (Uttarakhand) in the North It is associated with the Jagannath temple. The whole of the Eastern part of the Indian subcontinent is considered as the territory of Sri Govardhan Peeth. This includes the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh till Rajamundry, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Telangana, Tripura, Mizoram, and Uttar Pradesh till Prayag. The countries Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan as well as the Southeast Asian and Tibetan regions, are also considered spiritual territory of the math. Puri, Prayagraj, Gaya and Varanasi are some of the holy places under this Math.

According to tradition, as established in the 13th 15th century, Govardhana matha is one of four cardinal institutions established by Adi Shankara (c. 8th century CE), regarded by later tradition as the reviver of Vedic Hinduism. Shankara's four principal disciples, Padma Pada, Hasta Malaka, Vartika Kara or Sureshvara and Totakacharya were assigned to these four learning centers in the north, south, east and west of India. The subsequent leaders of each of these four monasteries are known as Śaṅkarāchāryas in honor of the math's founder, Adi Shankara. As such they are the leaders of the Daśanāmī Saṃnyāsins who are considered to have custody of Advaita Vedānta In 1992, he stepped down after nominating Niscalananda Saraswati as his successor. Niscalananda Saraswati was born in Darbhanga in 1943, the son of the raj Pandita of Maharaja of Darabhanga. He decided to enter sanyasa while being a student in the Tibbia College and spent time studying the shastras at Kashi, Vrindavan, Naimisaranya, Shringeri etc. In 1974, he took diksha from Swami Karpatri who gave him name Niscalananda. On 11 February 2018 silver jubilee (25th anniversary) of the pattabhisheka (coronation) of Swami Nischalananda Saraswati was celebrated in Puri in the presence of chief minister of Orissa Naveen Patnaik, former Nepal king Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev and Gajapati Maharaja Dibyasingha Deb of Puri.

The Samudra Arati is a daily tradition started by the present Shankaracharya 9 years ago. The daily practise includes prayer and fire offering to the sea at Svargadvara in Puri by disciples of the matha. On Paush Purnima of every year the Shankaracharya himself comes out to offer prayers to the sea.