temple priests - Page 6

hi chintana

Hi dhrub

chintana,are you online.where are you from.i am a hindi speaking brahmin from delhi.

Dear Administration,

I just joined the form about 10 minutes back. It is really unfortunate that the chief minister has announced that even temple priests will be replaced by other castes. It is traditional for many centuries that temple priests are always bhramins as they have known to have mastered the art of performing the pooja. They also acquire knowledge of veda and other rituals to perform pooja.

AS we do not have the enough strength to fight our cause on roads, it is important that we join some political parties to garner enough polictical strength to thrawt the new intiatives of the government.

hi rama,donot worry about temple priest issue.in 89-90 when laloo-mulayam came to power in u.p-bihar.first of all they decided the same thing.but even after 16 years barring 10-15 exception all priest are brahmins this is the figure among 290 million people.no body today want to become priest because it restricts people towards many carnal pleasure and most important of all becoming priest is nothing like getting into iims!

LavasZONe seems to be very emotional about the priests issue! Please cool down and think. What Suraj says is not totally illogical.

There were great reformers in Hinduism and that too from our own Brahmin community- Unlike Islam, Hinduism reformed itself over a period of time and slowly became progressive - Sati was abolished - Child marriages banned- Widow remarriages gaining acceptance- All of course with Govt support-Let us set our house right- Things will definitely look up-

Let us accept the reality that , except gurukkals and bhattacharya, nobody else- brahmin or non-brahmins were allowed in the sanctum sanctorum of our temples- Even if they are Ganapatikals! Right or wrong- it is only a tradition-
Nothing wrong in correcting them- Of course I agree with you that MK is not driven by this noble cause- Even then let us see reason.

Regarding your comments on job, salary, leave etc- The archaka is a job now in HRCE temples- They get monthly salary- It is a sort of quasi-govt job- In the late sixties, I was in small villages of Tanjore distt- I have many times heard the village gurukkals saying " If these temples are taken by the govt, it is good- At least we will get regular salaries"- In fact they were running from pillar to post to include their temple in the HRCE list! Otherwise, nobody was bothered about these village temples! The archakas were living in abject poverty!

Let us not try to make any statements implying that all non-brahmins are non-pious, meat eaters, drunkerds etc. - This type of statements have caste-overtones and betrays our arrogance- There are good and bad characters in all communities! Why do you assume a non-brahmin priest to behave badly? Can you say all the brahmin priests are epitomes of virtue? Have you ever visited Srirangam temple or Palani for that matter? How our own community archakas fleece our own community people- you can see with your own eyes!

In stead of defending the indefensible, let us concentrate on how to bring our archaka community brothers and sisters to the main stream and to alternative professions!
That is what we should do!

Shankar
Bhilai

Very interesting perspective by Shankar. Thank you.

Dear Shanker,
Thanks for your prespective, I the act of temple to be included in HRCE would be a great feat in those days, believe me as per my previous post in this thread, the salary or consolitated pay for the temple priest in villages is ~ INR 500 per month (less that USD12). Then the priest has to resent to bedgging.
Also the temples are not chruches or mosques which came to convert people then they may need anyone to conduct the cermony. Also they are congregations. Which in hinduism to have some recent samiyars convene people for yagam, pooja and so on. Most of them are non traditional. With the case of temple It is the family tradition, it is their assest - most revered and accepted assest.
Sorry for attacking the CM, can MK and his family could partake the leadership and the fast made assets of SUN TV by an order of govt to nationalise all satellite channel (like indra gandhi order)? Certainly not.

Temples in the our country are reverred assest because it was above the normal and a role model for other people. Making anyone to position of temple priest would undermine the tradition and hurting the minds of fellow hindus themselves.

I am pointing out that very acquistion of temples by the govt is very unconsitutional by the fact. People are struggling to come out of the clutches of the secular govt. Any further internvention is itself :"kim punar nyayam".

Thus people like srkpriv is making statement just because he can write in english. I beg all of you to analyse the issue first and don't try to reconcile our tradition with that of other traditions in other words don't negate a veda or agama just to show you a rational man/woman. If you cannot understand a concept then negation is like chi chi ithna drachitai pulikum attitude.

You can accept theories of modern physics and neuclear science because you think they are from authenticated source. You accept any medical improvement elightened by the scitentist even though they cannot explain very actual reaction of a paracetamol (your metacin) how cures you paid or fever. Yet you accept this medicine.
You may argue that these medicines dont harm you body, but this only upto our limited knowledge as observed with limited observation power of the present day science.

I amiving this long explanation just because people should not counter argue with the shortcomings of the example rather to take it as it is. ok.

Dear Mr. Pattuk,
It is not we who should analyse before saying anything. I guess it is you who shoud look at in non-emotional way. Basically you just have to apply abstract thinking. The court clearly said if a person is qualified to do this job he can do it. As long as they follow all the sambradayams without any issue I am personally okay with non-brahmisn becoming preist. I dont think God is going to complain as well.

Regarding your medicine and science analogy we are not taking it without any proof lots of science based things have been proven in many ways. Whereas no one is asking proof for faith. Religion and Godliness is based on faith. Where as religion and God I can take it on faith. non-allowance of non-brahmins doesn't come under faith premise. This is a social change and a necessary in that one. Hope it had happened long time back with the blessings of brahmins. But unfortunately brahmins are caste as villians while Mr. Karunanidhi is supposedly getting the good name as a social reformer for wrong reasons.

__________________
"Nothing is impossible I try to do nothing"

This is in reply to Thivya-
You have betrayed your own prejudices and hatred in your mail-
You want to project as if all brahmins - en bloc- are caste fanatics and all non-brahmins ( you want to call only them as "Tamils") are not!
This is a vey skewed attitude and is not the reality!
If you want to have a detailed discussion on this I am ready!

Shankar