Yajna is a ritual of offerings accompanied by chanting of Vedic mantras. Yajna is an ancient ritual of offering and sublimating the havana sámagri in the fire. The sublime meaning of the word yajna is derived from the Sanskrit verb yaj, which has a three-fold meaning of worship of deities (devapujana), unity (saògatikaraña) and charity (dána).An essential element is the ritual fire – the divine Agni – into which oblations are poured, as everything that is offered into the fire is believed to reach God.
The Yajna comprises of :
Yajna Shala:
The Place where the Yagya is performed. Normally its made exclusively for Hawans and kept clean and pure. A deep, called – Hawan Kund, is ready here for Hawan.
Sankalp :
As every sound exists in this universe, naturally this sound also moves in the universe and influences the person for whom the Yagya is being performed. We call it Sankalp. In Sankalp we individualize the effect of Yagya and Mantra. In this Sankalp, The Pandit speaks the person’s name, gotra and all particulars including birth details to make him unique. In other words, Sankalp is like an address to be written on a letter.
Aarti:
A ritual done by Deepak moving around God, taking his obstructions away (in fact, we pray God also as friend, father, child & Guru). In all these emotions, we take care of his problems too. Normally we sing his prayer while doing aarti. Om Jay Jagadish Hare..is a popular prayer.
Japa:
It is recite of a mantra. These mantras can be either Vedic or from Puran and have their particular results. One mantra has sometimes more applications. For example, Mahamrityunjay Mantra has 7 applications – Rananjaya (victory), Dhananjaya (wealth), Shatrunjaya (Enemy), Mritunjaya (Danger), Vyadhinjaya (Illness), Aadhinjaya (Psychics), Kalanjaya (Short longevity)
Hawan:
In hawan, the Pandit or host puts some specific materials in fire for many thousands of times after speaking a particular mantra for a particular purpose. It gives an energy to the attending person as well as believably also to God to maintain his entire creation. Scientifically, the hawan materials purify the atmosphere as well as these help in bringing rain.
Stotra:
Path is the reading prayers of God / goddesses for particular purposes. These paths contain several or several thousands of Vedic Verses and can take 1 to 1000 minutes depending upon the application of rituals. Normally Pandits read it from books but some people know it by tong. A Stotra is normally the prayer of a particular god for a particular purpose. For example Lord Shiva has hundreds of prayers, some for being prosperous, some for getting married and some for saving life.