Mānasa Pūjā
Mānasa Pūjā · mānasa-pūjā, “worship in the mind”
Mānasa has other meanings too: see all meanings of Mānasa.
Grammar: feminine noun; mānasa (of the mind, from manas, the mind) with pūjā (worship): “pūjā done in the mind”.
Meaning: pūjā offered in the heart by contemplation, to a form of Bhagavān Śrī Hari held in the mind, with articles imagined in dhyāna.
In the scriptures: teaching Uddhava how he is to be worshipped, Bhagavān Śrī Kṛshṇa says that the sādhaka may worship him, without guile and with bhakti, in a pratimā, on purified ground, in Agni, in Sūrya, in the waters, in the heart or in a brāhmaṇa. A pratimā is of eight kinds: of stone, wood, metal, sand, a gem, or paste, drawn on paper, or a form held in the mind. “In the pratimā belonging to a guileless bhakta, I should be worshipped with the materials laid down by the śāstra that are available according to place and time. I should also be worshipped in the heart, by contemplation”: this is mānasa pūjā (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 27).
Sūta tells Śaunaka Maharshi that after Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa had granted Mārkaṇḍeya Maharshi his wish to see his māyā and gone to Badarikāśrama, the maharshi lived on in his own āśrama, thinking only of that one thing. Everywhere, in Agni, Sūrya, Candra, the waters, the earth, Vāyu, ākāśa and the ātmā, he meditated on Hari, and performed mānasa pūjā with articles imagined in contemplation. At times, overwhelmed by the flood of prema, he forgot the pūjā (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 12, Chapter 9).
In the Brahma Purāṇa, Vyāsa tells the munis how Akrūra, driving Balarāma and Śrī Kṛshṇa to Mathurā, stopped at midday on the bank of the Yamunā to perform his daily rite. In the waters he had darśana of Balarāma as Śesha with a thousand hoods, and of Kṛshṇa in his lap, dark as a cloud, four-armed, bearing the cakra and the other divine weapons. He praised Acyuta there with a stotra, and then, still in the waters, he worshipped Śrī Hari with the sixteen upacāras (offerings), dhūpa, dīpa, flowers and the rest, all imagined in the mind: he performed mānasika pūjā. Leaving all other things and fixing his mind on the Parabrahman in the form of Kṛshṇa, after a long time he came out of samādhi, and, knowing himself fulfilled (kṛtārtha), came out of the Yamunā and went back to the chariot (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 192).
Related terms: Pūjā · Pratimā · Dhyāna · Manas · Bhakti
Sources
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 27; Skandha 12, Chapter 9
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 192