Prayer to the Sthālī
Sthālī Prārthanā · sthālī prārthanā, “the prayer to the cooking vessel”
The prayer to the sthālī is the three-verse prayer with which the giver honours the sthālī, the cooking vessel, before giving it in the Sthālī-dāna. In the Uttara Parva of the Bhavishya Purāṇa, Yudhishṭhira tells Śrī Kṛshṇa how Maitreya Muni told him of it in the forest, as Vasishṭha had taught it to a poor brāhmaṇī in a former age.
The setting
When the Pāṇḍavas went to the forest after the game of dice, the people and brāhmaṇas followed them out of love, and Yudhishṭhira asked how he could feed them for twelve years. Maitreya Muni told him of a brāhmaṇī in a tapovana, poor and unfortunate, who honoured brāhmaṇas daily and asked them for a vrata or dāna. Vasishṭha taught her the Sthālī-dāna. A copper vessel of 500, 250 or 125 palas is made, or a fine earthen pot, deep and strong, filled with mung and rice, smeared with candana and set in a maṇḍala, with greens, a water vessel and a ghee vessel beside it, and worshipped. Then the giver prays to it.
The prayer
The bhāva, as the Hindi gives it: “With blazing fire close by, with rice and with water, still food cannot be cooked without the sthālī. Sthālī, you are siddhi to those who wish siddhi and pushṭi to those who wish pushṭi. I bow to you. Make my word true. Until my kin, my friends, my relations, my servants and others have eaten, may the food in you not grow less. Grant such a vara.” The verse names the vessel piṭharī and names the brāhmaṇa too among those to be fed first.
The phala
The vessel is given to an excellent dvija on a Sunday, saṅkrānti, caturdaśī, ashṭamī, ekādaśī or tṛtīyā. The brāhmaṇī gave sthālīs daily, and Maitreya told Yudhishṭhira that by that puṇya she was born again as Draupadī, whose hand will never be empty in giving, and who could satisfy the whole world from her sthālī. One who gives a copper sthālī filled with rice to a brāhmaṇa on a parva day never runs short of food in his house, though friends, kin, servants and guests eat daily.
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 170
Sources
- Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 170