Gokarna Auncy (The Ceremonial Father's Day)

This auspicious day falls on the last day of the dark fortnight of Bhadra, which is the climax of the dark side of the lunar month completely free from the moon. The moon is said to have been born from human minds, which when let loose, could lead one to ashes any time. The moon symbolizes the restless nature of human mind which is a big enemy for all the spiritual seekers. This is the reason why the Auncy or the moonless nights are so sacred to Lord Shiva. Now one can well assume the signi-ficance of Gokarna Auncy. On this day, the Nepalese people who have their fathers still living, make every possible effort to please them serving them with all the best sweetmeats and delicacies they can afford. This is traditionally to indicate one's love and respect for one's father. But for those whose fathers are no longer in this world, the recommended place to go and pay tribute to them is the shrine to Gokarneshwar Mahadev (Lord Shiva) about seven kilometres north east of Kathmandu city. This shrine situated on the bank of the holy river. Gokarna is a unique place of pilgrimage, where every year, thousands and thousands of fatherless sons.and daughters go to pray Lord Shiva for peace to the souls of their deceased fathers. And another customary part of this pilgrimage is to take a holy dip in the river Gokarna flowing southward and perform the respectful rituals in memory of one's deceased father. Linga forms of Lord Shiva are very common in Nepal. The image in the Gokarna shrine is also a Linga, the phallic symbol of Lord Shiva united with Yoni, the female organ. The Linga is to symbolize the supreme Brahma or the Absolute Being and the Yoni with Linga to the non-stop creative action. Linga without Yoni is only to represent the formless Supreme Consciousness. There are many oval shaped holy Lingams without Yoni in Nepal. They are all to remind us of the supreme source of creation. Yajurveda in support of this point says that every thing of this universe is manifested from the dazzling divine light called Jyotirlinga. The scientific version of the same story is that this planet in the beginning was only a flaming piece of the solar planet.

 The Shivalinga in Gokarna is said to have emerged from the one-horned deer form of Lord Shiva. There is a very fascinating legend about this which runs this way. Once Lord Shiva changed himself into an one-horned deer and set out for a pleasure tour in the lush green wood land. Despite a quite long time of on this tour, he did not bother to come back to Kailas, his celestial home. This worried all the deities of the heaven including Indra, Brahma and Vishnu. They had a great meeting and finally decided to make a joint effort to find out where Lord Shiva could be guided by an invisible deity of female principal power. They came across a very unique one-horned deer grazing freely in the wood land, whom Lord Brahma, the god of creation immediately recognized to be Lord Shiva himself. He jumped and took hold of the deer's horn. But lo! no sooner Lord Brahma got hold of it than the deer disappeared leaving three fragments of the horn in his hands to his great surprise. It is said that later on as Lord Shiva desired, of those three fragments one went down the under-world, one up to the heaven and one left with Lord Brahma which he soon enshrined at Gokarna and named it as Gokarneshwar Mahadev. The breaking of the legendary horn into three pieces is symbolically to represent the Hindu trinity, the three basic qualities of Nature such as creative, preservative and destructive elements. This is als-o to symbolize the Vedantic approach to percieving unity in diversity. However, the horn in its entirety symbolizes the supreme reality, the one without second. Since the supreme reality is the original home of all the earthly realities it is quite natural for the mortals to seek shelter with Lord Shiva, the great spiritual father of all the Jivas, the mortal beings. This would explain a lot about the theme of making customary pilgrimage to Gokarneshwar Mahadev and pray the Lord for peace in the world of the deceased fathers.

 According to some Hindu scriptures, the best time to offer the pinda (the favourite food of the deceased fathers) to the pitries (souls) is the Gokarna Auncy. This time of the year, the pitries are said to grow very anxious and impatient to receive pinda from their sons. Though Gokarna Auncy is the ceremonial father's day, yet those who have their fathers still living are advised not to make even a fun trip to Gokarneshwar on this particular day. If one dares do it he is believed to fall victim of some thing awful sooner or later. This is definitely to indicate that fathers should be respected more in their own life time than after their death. Thus, Gokarna Auncy seems to prove itself to be a tremendous occasion for all the human beings than to fully show respect and love to their respective fathers dead and alive both and pray to Lord Shiva, the spiritual father of all the mortals for peace.