Shat Tila Danam 2012 date

Shat Tila Danam 2012 date is 12 February. Shat Tila Danam falls on the twenty-seventh Magha, twelfth day of the light half. Shat Tila Danam may be considered as in some sort a continuation of the Bhaimyekadasi, and is intended for the same object that is the removal or expiation of sin.

Way to perform Shat Tila Danam

As the name implies, Shat Tila Danam, six different acts are to be performed, in all which Tila or sesamum seeds are an essential ingredient. The person who observes the rite is to bathe in water in which they have been steeped to anoint self with a paste made of ingredients, to offer them with clarified butter upon fire, to present them with water to the manes of his ancestors, to eat them, to give them away. The consequences of so doing are purification from sin, exemption from sickness and misfortune, and a sojourn in lord Indra's heaven for thousands of years.

Legend behind Shat Tila Danam

According to the Brahma Purana, Yama, the deity of the infernal regions, created Sesamum after long and arduous penance upon this day, whence its sanctity. The same title and the same virtues are sometimes attributed also to the twelfth of the dark fortnight of the month, as was explained by Agastya to Dattatreya, when he asked by what means the effects of sin would be obviated, and sinners saved from hell without great effort or munificent donations. The ceremonies of Shat Tila Danam are to be performed with Tila seeds are the easy means of accomplishing the object. The importance attached to the use of Sesamum in most of the offerings, but especially in those to the Manes, is very remarkable and not very explicable. The legend of their being generated by Yama is rather the consequence than the cause of such appropriation. Sesamum seeds did form an ingredient in the offerings of the Greeks, but not with the same frequency, nor apparently with the same object. Cakes of sesamum were distributed by them at marriages, as the grains were considered typical of fertility. Perhaps some such opinion may have prevailed amongst the Hindus, and hence their use in obsequies offerings, the great end of which is not merely the satisfaction of the dead, but the perpetuation of progeny, and the prosperity of the living.

Another festival is observed on this day, in some parts of India, in honour of Vishnu, as the Varaha, his descent as a boar to lift up the earth from beneath the waters being supposed to have occurred on this day; hence it is termed also the Varaha Dwadasi.