SHER MAAR PANJU; Our earliest known ancestor; Historical Background of our family in Jhalu

 

A little background about our family as I knew from my grandparents and other elders; It comes from a small rural background, small town, JHALU, (Bijnor, UP). Our ancestors  lived there for long time, but the earliest story is known that they were land lords and their rivals, pathans-a muslim community also had  farm lands over there. On one occasion of RAKSHABANDAN day, those pathans killed all our male ancestors and then according to the custom of that time, ladies committed SATTI (Satti was the rituals those days that after the death of husband, widow used to self immolate). We still have that old Satti House in the town. In fact, our Grah Devta also lives there.In earlier days, we used to go there and bring our Grah Devta home for important ceremonies like marriage, naming and yagopaveet etc. It was only one pregnant lady living with her parents away from Jhalu, survived. Later, she gave birth to a baby boy who when grew adult , thought seriously to find out his roots. In fact, a deep feeling of revenge for that carnage happened to his ancestors. Having this in mind and determination , with all opposition from his mother and other parental relatives, he walked to JHALU. He came up to  our garden ( where we had a well and a small room for shelter)  near KHARI , he faced a lion. The lion was chased by the ruler (Nawab) of Ruhelkhand for hunting. He had no option except to face the lion. He took out his turban and inserted in the mouth of the lion and thus lion was suffocated and died. Nawab chasing the lion , found the young boy holding the lion dead. He appreciated his courage and awarded him the title of " SHER MAAR PANJU" ( meaning the person who killed the lion by his Punja-hands ) for his bravery. He was so pleased that he further on asking his welfare etc. awarded him back the land of his ancestors and asked the pathan to go away from the town to a new town established for their resettlement- NAWADA KALAN ( New village/settlement ) and warned them not to look back for any revenge or atrocities to the young person. He then, resettled in his ancestors town , JHALU with all  his property and land given back to him. I could not get his real name but SHER MAAR PANJU. He is the most recent historical ancestor of our GARG family which is now quite big and wide spread all over, ( broadly known Mahalwale  , kothiwale and us ) . Most of the family members settled in other cities and abroad, now only a few are left in the town.

The history of my own family is given in another blog. https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7434278182063497637/3162980977026679503

MAHELWALE;

I do not know much about the hierarchy of the family but from my personal observation and knowledge:

1. One group of family used to live in the Mahel with the heads; Shri Goipnath jee, Shri Niyader Mal jee, Shri Raghunath Prasad jee ( His father shri Baldev Prasad jee??); Shri Kishan Lal jee ;

2. Second group: Just in front of Mahel: Shri Rajju Mal jee, Shri Roshan Lal jee,

3 Third group: Shri Chiranjee Lal jee ( sons; Ram Gopal jee and Om Prakash jee);

   Shri Ram Prasad jee - Known as Kanoogo jee ( sons......                               )

   Shri Faqir Chand jee ( sons; Jai Prakash, Ram Kumar, Rameshwar Prasad, Devendra Kumar, Sushil Kumar  ;  ?????) 

KOTHIWALE:

I do not know much about the hierarchy of this group of our family;

the oldest pesron, I know- Shadi Lal and his son Asharfee Lal ; Asharfi Lal ,s sons are; Shri Anand Prakash, Veer Prakash and Dheer Prakash : 

Om Prakash, ( son; Ishwar Chandra Agarwal) Satya Prakash ( Son; Hari Prakash) and Shyam Prakash, ( sons;                                       ) 

Jyoti Prakash, Ved Prakash, and  

Roshan Lal, ( Sons: Ram, Lakshman, Charat Bharat, Bhole) Jagdish Prashad ( sons, Sushil Kumar,             ???)

SHARADH

SHRAADDH
Shraaddh have begun from yesterday.( September 12, 2011; MONDAY)

Shraaddh is a kind of memorial ceremony to remember the Dead Ancestors. It goes up to three generations of both parental sides (father and mother's side) . Shraaddh continue for 16 days from the Poornimaa of Bhaadrapad up to Amaavasyaa of Aashwin month ( the whole dark fortnight of Aashwin month ) . This Amaavasyaa is thus called Pitri Samokinee Amaavasyaa. This Amaavasyaa has one more characteristic that if one forgets to perform Shraaddh on a prescribed day ( the date of the death of the ancestor) then he can perform it on this last day.

It is as much a son's duty to perform Shraaddh of his parents and grandparents, as he is supposed to look after them while they are alive. In most cases, it is performed by the eldest son but others my also participate.Thus this is Pitri Poojaa in a way and the method to perform it is prescribed in Shaastra. In our family, my grandfather used to do it in a grand way for his father by inviting Brahamins for Pooja and BHOJAN at the lunch time, not in the evening. Invitation to Brahamins for this ceremony was given only in the morning of the day of the ceremony while for other Poojas, it has to be in advance, some times even a few days earlier. It used to be a feast for other immediate members of the family. For other ancestors, it used to be only TARPAN (Remembrance of the ancestor with some token money and water; water is offered to the SUN while the money is donated to the Brahamins).

Note: 1. On the last day of Shraaddh - on Amaavasyaa day, final TARPAN is done for the forgotten ancestors and for others who are even unknown who may be expecting remembrance from their family but there is nobody to remember them.

2. Shraaddh for Nana and Nani (parents of the mother ) is done only when there is no son in that family to perform this Pooja and Tarpan; In my own case, I am supposed to do it for my Nani not for Nana as my Nana has the son and grandson etc. from his previous wife, but in case of Sameer, he and Shalabh are supposed to do it for their mother's parents as they don't have son to do it for them.

3. In my own case, as I lived abroad (Nigeria, Ethiopia, USA and Canada ) even in India in different regions of the country due to nature of my job, it was not conducive or possible for me to perform the rituals according to required norms, I used to do only TARPAN on the day of Amaavasyaa because I did not remember the exact Tithi /day of the death of my mother, Nani and other ancestors. I feel that this is the best way of performing this important ritual, but one must do it.

4. BACKGROUND of the ritual:

These are only my personal views and thoughts about it. In observe it main thing is to remember our ancestors at least once a year and do some charity work in their remembrance - like donating money, materials (clothes, and anything else) etc; meeting some social obligations, planting trees in their memory etc etc.Our ancestors do not come personally, directly and physically to accept these offerings but certainly acknowledge them indirectly in one way or the other.
As it is believed that the Soul lives with three different kind of bodies namely; PHYSICAL- the organic structure mainly composed of five elements-the earth, water, fire, air and ether with main function to perform physical activities; and this is very temporary for one life only in any living form (human beings, animals, birds etc .male, female etc.) After completing the life, it is destroyed by death.; SUBTLE BODY ( Sookshm Shareer) and CAUSAL BODY (Kaaran Shareer); these two bodies always remain with the soul and keep an account of their actions day to day and life to life. Depending upon the balance sheet (cumulative account of actions) of the previous lives (Praarabdh), the soul takes another Physical Body in any form in any specific place at some specific time. These two bodies wherever they are in any form are interconnected to other souls according to their relationships in previous lives in a very a complicated network. So, whenever we do anything in the names of the known bodies, they are accepted , acknowledged and appreciated and our accounts are readjusted accordingly.
Our FINANCIAL Capital, converted into SOCIAL Capital finally gets deposited into our SPIRITUAL Capital -the ultimate balance which goes with us after our death.