Indians across world conduct prayers for successful landing of Chandrayaan-3
Indians around the globe have been conducting prayers in anticipation of the significant moment of a “soft landing” of Chandrayaan-3’s Lander Module on the Moon’s surface, scheduled for 6.04 pm on Wednesday.
People of all faiths offered prayers on Wednesday morning, hoping for India to achieve a historic milestone in space exploration. If successful, India will become the world’s first country to achieve a landing on the south pole of the Moon—a challenging terrain. Russia’s recent attempt with Luna-25 to achieve the same ended in failure just 12 hours before the scheduled landing time.
From Rishikesh to the United States, people are performing special rituals, prayers, and ceremonies to ask for blessings for the success of Chandrayaan-3. Religious ceremonies spanning various faiths are being conducted across India to seek blessings for the success of the groundbreaking moon mission.
Prayers across Indian states
In Madhya Pradesh, people came together at Ujjain’s Shree Mahakaleshwar Temple to perform a special ceremony called ‘Bhasma Aarti’ for successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 on Moon’s south pole.
A different kind of ceremony, known as ‘Ganga Aarti’, was dedicated to India’s moon mission at Parmarth Niketan Ghat in Uttarakhand’s Rishikesh, where people held the Indian flag while performing the Aarti. Before this ceremony, devotees also performed a special worship called ‘Havan Pujan’ at the Ghat to wish for the mission’s success.
In places like Bhubaneswar, Varanasi, and Prayagraj, groups of people gathered to perform a ritual called ‘havan’ and pray for Chandrayaan-3’s safe landing.
Similarly, at the Hanuman temple in Uttar Pradesh’s Aliganj, people came together to perform an aarti, a traditional ritual involving lights and prayers. Many devotees took part in this aarti and prayed earnestly for Chandrayaan 3 to achieve its goal.
Meanwhile, at the Islamic Center of India in Lucknow, people offered namaz, a form of Islamic prayer, with the intention of the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3.
Prayers abraod
In the United States, Indian Americans are turning to religious practices like performing a ‘havan’ (fire ritual) and ‘Abhishekam’ to wish for the success of the Chandrayaan-3’s landing on the Moon.
Members of the Indian diaspora gathered at a temple in Virginia, US, to perform a ‘havan’. News agency ANI quoted a visitor to the Virginia temple, Madhu Ramamurthy, who is connected to aerospace and defence through her work, saying, “I’ve been personally working in the area of advanced materials that go into aerospace and defence for a very long time now. I own a company in Bangalore that makes a lot of components that go into defence. Now, it so happens, very coincidentally, that we also make a very high-strength fabric that is used to reinforce and make it stronger.”
Indian students and researchers in Uxbridge, London, organised a special prayer at the Adya Shakti Mataji Temple to pray for the safe landing of the Chandrayaan-3.