Face2News/Nevada
Hindu prayers will open the meeting of County of San Diego Board of Supervisors on May five, containing verses from world’s oldest extant scripture.
Distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed and San Diego Hindu Shri Mandir priest Pandit Kedar A. Dave will jointly deliver the invocation from ancient Sanskrit scriptures before the County of San Diego Board of Supervisors. After Sanskrit delivery, the English interpretation of the prayers will be read. Sanskrit is considered a sacred language in Hinduism and the root language of Indo-European languages.
Zed, who is the President of Universal Society of Hinduism; and Pandit Dave will recite from Rig-Veda, the oldest scripture of the world still in common use; besides lines from Upanishads and Bhagavad-Gita (Song of the Lord), both ancient Hindu scriptures. They plan to start and end prayer with “Om”, the mystical syllable containing the universe, which in Hinduism is used to introduce and conclude religious work.
Reciting from Brahadaranyakopanishad, Zed & Dave plan to say “Asato ma sad gamaya, Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya, Mrtyor mamrtam gamaya”; which they will then interpret as “Lead us from the unreal to the real, Lead us from darkness to light, and Lead us from death to immortality.” Reciting from Bhagavad-Gita, they propose to urge the supervisors and others present to keep the welfare of others always in mind.
Zed, a global Hindu and interfaith leader, has been bestowed with the World Interfaith Leader Award. Zed is on the Advisory Board of The Interfaith Peace Project, Senior Fellow and Religious Advisor to Foundation for Religious Diplomacy, etc. He has been a panelist for “On Faith”, a prestigious interactive conversation on religion produced by The Washington Post; and leads a weekly interfaith panel “Faith Forum” in a USA TODAY Network publication for over 15 years.
Mission of Shri Mandir of San Diego, whose history goes back to 1994, includes:… to give an opportunity to all for a joyous, peaceful and blissful life through God consciousness… respect all living beings including those that follow other religions and belief systems, etc. Ramesh Patel is President of Mandir Executive Committee.
County of San Diego, second-most populous county in California and the fifth-most populous in the United States; is home to 18 Native American reservations, 16 military installations, over 70 miles of coastline; and is the most species-rich county in the contiguous USA. Terra Lawson-Remer is Chair of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.
Hinduism, oldest and third largest religion of the world, has about 1.2 billion adherents and moksh (liberation) is its ultimate goal. There are about 3.2 million Hindus in the USA.
