Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

State-level autonomous body soon to ensure temple rituals

By Our Staff Reporter

Vijayawada July 28. The Endowments Minister, D Sivarama Raju, on Sunday said that the Government would soon set up an autonmous State level advisory council for ensuring proper conduct of pooja and other rituals in temples as ordained in the scriptures.

The proposed advisory council would be filled with vedic pundits, archakas and Hindu religious scholars fully conversant with Hindu dharma. The council would advise and supervise the conduct of the rituals that has to be followed by archakas in the temples.

Speaking to reporters here at Chinna Jeeyar Ashrama, Sitanagaram, the Minister admitted that the need for such an advisory body had become essential in the wake of criticism that many temples were not performing the regular aradhana ceremonies and other rituals as advised in the scripture.

Earlier in the day, the Minister participated in the concluding day function of the fortnight long training camp for 83 archakas of different temples in the coastal region. The archakas under the guidance of the Chinna Jeeyar were imparted training on the conduct of rituals in temples.

Mr Sivarama Raju said he had recently convened a meeting of the Executive Officer of the Tirumala Tirupati Devesthanam (TTD) and discussed the issue of proper conduct of pooja and rituals in the world's richest temple. "After the swamiji (Chinna Jeeyar) expressed concern over the approach of the archakas in the conduct of regular rituals, I convened a meeting of the Executive Officer, TTD and other staff and advised them to observe necessary rituals,'' he said.

Chinna Jeeyar Swami who was also present at the press conference regretted that in the Tirupati temple, certain minimum rituals whose conduct was very essential were not being fully observed. He said as per the scriptures at least for a few hours the temple should be closed in the afternoon and at different intervals to enable the archakas perform the aradhana ceremonies for the deity. But this was not being observed in the temple as the devesthanam was more concerned with earning revenue and allowing uninterrupted darshan for people betweeen 7am-7pm. In the process, he said, sufficient time was not being given for performing the necessary rituals for the deity.

``It is only when you do not perform proper rituals for the deities that society suffers from unrest in the form poor monsoon conditions, drought, terrorism and decline in moral values,'' the Swamiji said.

The Chinna Jeeyar announced that the Jeeyar Trush had launched a programme under the "Geeta Jyothi'' programme to spread the message of dharma and Hindu religion in far-flung villages of different districts in the State.

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