Diya
A Diya, Diyo,
Deya, divaa, deepa, deepam, or deepak is an oil lamp used in Nepal and India,
usually made from clay, with a cotton wick dipped in ghee or vegetable oils.
The Deya (Hindu lamp) thus consisted of three major
components,
·
Cotton fiber,
·
Clarified butter or ghee, oil and
·
Earthen container
1 Cotton
It is a
vegetable fiber obtained from the mature capsule of the cotton plant. Science
has confirmed that all plants have bio photons. Cotton cultivation first spread from India to
Egypt, China and the South Pacific. It was the only versatile vegetable fiber,
then existing in India. The fiber has good absorbency, good durability, comfort
and soft, cool retention and many more properties that were useful to mankind.
The fiber of cotton can be also mounded into a wick. Virtually all parts of the
cotton plant are used in some way, including the lint, cottonseed, linters,
stalks and seed hulls. It was the single resourceful plant in the liveliness of
the Hindus in the early stages of development.
2 Clarified butter or ghee
The clarified butter or ghee is a kind of oil (fat)
used for religious purposes and for food. Ghee is made by melting butter,
cooking off the water and separating the pure, golden butter fat from the milk
solids. Another advantage of ghee is that it is under a longer shelf life than
ordinary butter. Traditionally, ghee is always made from cow's milk. Milk is
the most sacred liquid serviceable to mankind. The mammals produce milk for
their offspring’s and it’s so nutritious that we are farming milk from cows
feeding many undernourished people and children. Milk substitutes meat in all
its values without killing the animals.
When the milk is kept longer, it goes sour following
the law of nature. The curdled milk is used to produce butter. In olden days,
the milk maids use to hand churn and collected the butter from the summit. It
was the fat in the milk that was collected as cream. At every stage, the milk
is good for mankind. A cow has remained a frequent companion throughout the
civilization of mankind and many spiritual attributes are given to the cow in
the Hindu religion. Ghee has served in every stage of Hindus life and the most
recommended oil for devotional prayers and food.
From practical experiences Hindus concluded that
different oils had dissimilar flames and held the ghee lamp to be the best that
had divine qualities. Very convincing according to science, those atoms of
different molecules will give dissimilar photons or light produced by different
matter is not the same.
The oil lamp
generates subtle armour of inferior quality around the worshipper while ghee
lamp generates subtle armour of superior quality. The subtle frequencies
emitted from the oil lamp activate the Mind-energy (Manashakti) of the
worshipper whereas the subtle frequencies emanating from the ghee lamp
activates soul energy of the worshipper.
Though the use of ghee is recommended
because of its capacity to emit maximum sattva frequencies, we can use sesame
oil lamp if the use of ghee is not possible. The lamp with sesame oil is
comparatively more sattvik. Sattvik is a quality of nature or
matter or
of components in the universe signified by purity to balance an
action which is guided by cosmic wisdom and that which is of goodness
developing real knowledge or truth.
3. Clay
Clay was the leading resourceful material used by
early humans in their everyday life. Life on earth depends on matter and the
use of matter in human life is not just the continuation but also of
existence. Potters accumulates the clay,
removes all the gems and shapes it into the required pattern on the potter’s
wheel. When sun dried, it is baked in a kiln at a high temperature, which
removes all the water from the clay, inducing reactions that lead to enduring
changes including increasing their strength and hardening and setting their
shape. Around 5000 B.C., the potter's wheel was invented, probably by the
Sumerians in the Tigris-Euphrates basin or the Chinese. Hindus picked up this
art and made numerous useful artifacts that were used for worshipping the
creator. Clay was the principal matter that again touched the lives of early humans.
The Hindus believed that the finished shape of the clay lamp is blessed with
the sun (Surya deva) and fire ( Agni deva)
The clay is replaced by pure metals like gold, silver
or copper. Copper is the recommended metal for Hindu ritual ceremonies and prayers,
alloys of cooper like brass is also used to give it the imitation look of gold.
The birth of a Deya (Hindu lamp)
When an individual chooses the three most informative
and Sattvic ingredient, the cotton fiber, the ghee and rested in the
earthenware, a lamp is fixed. With the help of Agni Deva, the tip of the wig
will burn into a bright flame giving light. This flame is so unique and pure or
sattvic that it has taken a place of God’s altar in worshiping the Creator.
This ritual has stood the test of time and the Hindus confirm this, by lighting
the lamp, as the most auspicious unit in their lives. The photons that are
produced in this combination have many divine powers and it became a messenger
to god or our creator. The aura of this flame is divine and is created as a
blessed messenger of the creator.
Different Wicks made of Cotton, Lotus steam thread and
Banana stem are also used for a Deya.
It is prescribed to light up the lamp with cow ghee but Sesame Oil ,Coconut Oil , Til oil and some
mixtures of oils is also used to fix a lamp. Clay lamps are
widely used for spiritual rituals and the significance of clay lamp is extreme
in all kinds of prayers and devotional religious customs. Silver lamp, gold
lamp, brass lamp and copper lamps are also commonly used. But none of them use Iron and steel
With the pure cotton fiber, pure ghee (it still
represents animal fat) and a vessel made with the element of mother earth, the
purest of all is copper, would produce an illumination which will vibrate the
universal consciousness with the Sattvic reality linking our creator to its
life on earth (matter). Ghee lamp has also an ability to attract the sattvik
vibrations present in the surrounding atmosphere and gives spiritual experience
of all the Tatvas (Akasha Tattva, Vayu Tattva, Tejas Tattva, Apas Tattva , Pritvi Tattva) to the
worshipper motivating them to higher planes of consciousness.
Philosophy of the Deya (Lamp)
The Deya is philosophized to inspire the worshipers of
its creation, preservation and dissolution. The cotton fiber and the ghee
scarified themselves, giving light to many a dark night. Clay pot witnesses
this sacrifice. It seemed as though only the mother earth's lap was available
to receive the final abode with such a sacrifice. It was this pure light that eradicated the
darkness, offering services to those in need. Taking note of the fact that a
lamp made of pure ghee gives a flame without soot and considered the most
sattvic (spiritually pure) entity. The lamp is the greatest symbol of
scarifies, instructing our lives that the true sacrifice springs from the
recognition of the ego with the ultimate and thus represents the universal
vibration recognized as AUM or OM arising from the voids of an agitated atoms
by the heat of the fire.
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