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Sometime back there was an email that gave a news item in CNN-IBN Channel on group of youngsters who go to temples and give the science behind Hindu practices.
The text is available in :
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/hanging-out-at-temples-to-rationalise-religion/45972-3.html
The video is available in:
http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/45972/hanging-out-at-temples-to-rationalise-religion.html
Now it seems the same group has got good reviews in a local newspaper in Chennai. This group is totally made up of college going youngsters. See the report below. They need support. If you are interested, do help them.
Report in Adyar Talk paper (published in Chennai):
Do you know why vibudhi is applied? Why homams (havans) are performed, why circumambulate the peepal tree? Why chant mantras? and the significance of 108?
These are some of the questions answered scientifically by volunteers of Temple Project which is an initiative to increase awareness about Indian culture. The architects of the project are not any religious group, not any NGO, but a group of youth - students from different city colleges.
These handful of youth visit temples around the city to spread the rationale behind our daily cultural practices. When questioned on how it all started, a volunteer Bala Ganesh says 'we were inspired by Swami Vivekananda's 'My Plan of Campaign' and decided to bring out the scientific explanation of our cultural practices'
They have been doing this for the past one year and have covered quite a few temples in the city. Their modus operandi is very simple - they obtain permission from temple authorities to display their boards which contain the reasons behind our traditional practices.
The volunteers explain the reasons to the people visiting temples. "Lot of people said that a small booklet containing this information would be helpful, so we pooled in our own money and came up with a booklet to distribute it free of cost' say Kalidos, a law student.
Of late, they have also started cleaning the temples to put in some physical labour in addition to their explanations.
Last Sunday, Temple project was held at Shri Sai Baba Temple at Guindy. Also, these youth make sure that they understand the Indian culture in its true dimension and thus spare some time at the temple to discuss about it among themselves.
Seeing the impact of these students, many temples have wanted these boards to be permanently kept in their premises. The students are working out an economical way for having their information permanently at the temple premises. But the going has not been that easy for these youngsters, 'Famous temples and those owned by HR & CE have a lot of formalities and do not give permission easily, making it tedious to arrange at those temples in our limited time' says engineering student Shankar Ram.
'A bigger problem we face is the burden of funds. Being students, we cannot afford the cost of publishing these booklets. In addition, we do not belong to any organisation and thus we don't get sponsors' says Madhukumar, another engineering student.
These spirited youth prove that youth are not useless but used less. For further details contact Kalidos at 9841063687.
4 comments:
I am a long time fan of this blog, and I agree with most of your thoughts, but saying that Hindus are persecuted in Tamil Nadu is grossly overstating facts. Tamilians are deeply religious, inspite of decades of Dravidian rule. Go to villages in Tamil Nadu, talk to the people there, talk to autorickshaw drivers in Chennai, talk to college students in Chennai, Madurai, Tiruchi: the one common thing you will notice is the deep religiosity. The Dravidian movement attracted large crowds from the younger generation a few decades ago. Not now. I think the Dravidians are being elected to power because we really have no choice. The choice is between Jaya and MK, and given Jaya's corruption from her fist stint, it is necessary to periodically stand her down. Remember how the Tamilians rejected MK going against all predictions after the Coimbatore blast.
I totally agree with your views on the Dravidian cult, but overstating facts might lead a lot of Tamilians turning away from the national Hindu mainstream. I always loved the balance in this blog, please don't make it unreadable for Tamil Hindus.
middleroad, i will mention at least one hindu who has been persecuted in tamil nadu: swami jayendra sarasvati. that this kind and gentle man was jailed and humiliated is heart-breaking. i remember around that time i flew into trivandrum and saw a bunch of officers receiving some random christist padres -- not that high up, certainly it wasn't ratzy or wojta or other such top godmen (i don't know of what variety, but they had cute purple sashes and caps over their long white skirts) and escorting to Kerala State cars including a mercedes and some lancers. this was during the christist regime of oommen chandy. i thought then, yes, swami jayendra also has government transport -- a paddy-wagon like a common criminal. the contrast was telling. christist padres get the full support of the state; hindu saints, even a revered sankaracharya, are humiliated.
this is an apartheid society, and tamil nadu is the worst because of the disgusting 'dravidians'. they are stealth-christists; now that kerala has been taken over by christists, they are bringing their tactics to tamil nadu. beware, my friend. you will have nowhere to go unless you rise up and protest. it will be "convert to christism, flee, or die".
While I appreciate these students' drive to make Hindu traditions better known, it's not a good idea to start 'explaining' them. That is to fall into the trap set by the Indologists/eminent historian types etc. The latter do bait and switch and will adroitly flip between the explanatory mode and interpretative mode, while all along keeping their own assumptions beyond scrutiny. We shd remember that terms like god, worship, and prayer have no Hindu equivalent. These are purely Christian terms and cannot be but applied in error to Hindu traditions. Murti Puja is not idol worship. A murti is not an idol. And Hindus do not pray or worship. An archanai or abhishekam is not a "religious service". A certain monotheistic cult is these days in the practice of appropriating Hidnu traditions. I have had an interesting encounter with one such cultist (who is but for his belief a gem of a person, and a decorated CRPF veteran). This friend of mine had spent some years at a monastery before he quit to join the CRPF going on to become an expert sniper. When he told me about the use of OM, shashtanga namaskaram, and even aarati, to insist that the cult has been indigenised, I replied that by doing all these things he is abandoning the doctrine and dogma of his faith. Even on the subject of yoga I am very clear with my friends of the cults, that it is a Hindu tradition, unapologetically and unambiguously so. Ashtanga yoga imples following the Hindu/Dharmic path. A Sikh, Jain, Buddhist or Hindu and even a Shinto/Daoist may comfortably follwo yoga. But for a cultist to join yoga is to turn away from their doctrine and dogma.
"Middleroad", I do not dispute your statement regarding the religiosity of Tamil Hindus, but I vehemently disagree and object to the rest of your assertions. First, let me clarify my nomenclature for your benefit that "Dravidian" is not synonymous with "Tamil Hindu". There is clear distinction between oppressor and oppressed. Your indignation is illogical. If I state that Jihadis in Kashmir are persecuting Kashmiri Pandits, am I implying that Kashmiri Pandits are lesser Hindus? Hindus are oppressed in Tamil Nadu by a coalition of "Dravidians", Mohammedans, Christists and Marxists - all of whom happen to be ethnic Tamils.
Rajeev has already pointed out the persecution of the Sankaracharya.
Open ridicule of the Hindu religion by Karunanidhi, Baalu et al has punctuated the Ram Setu issue. The Chennai municipal corporation recently demolished a Hindu temple ignoring the protests of local residents. There was a post a few weeks ago on this blog about a Hindu family that has sacrificed 3 brothers to fight against the construction of a Mohammedan mosque near a centuries old Hindu temple. The Dravidians have thrown the 4th remaining brother into jail for his courageous battle against Islamist fundamentalism!! Recently, Hindu Munnani activists were falsely implicated in a terrorist case where the Mohammedans had bombed an RSS office. The DMK regime recently announced reservations for
converted christists & Mohammedans.
How can one forget the simultaneous attacks on BJP and Hindu Munnani offices across Tamil Nadu by Dravidian fascists for daring to protest against Karunanidhi's sacrilegious attacks on Hinduism. I have a Tamil Hindu friend who was born in Chennai. When he was born, his father went to the office of the Registrar of Births in Chennai and was told by a Dravidian christist government employee that he would not be allowed to record his surname "Iyer" at any cost!!! Simply because that denotes a Hindu and a Brahmin at that!!
Yet, no Dravidian dirtbag ever objected to the head neanderthal naming his son after one of the biggest genocidal maniacs in world history - Stalin.
The state of Tamil Nadu, unfortunately is one of the worst oppressors of Hinduism. Kerala, Kashmir, West Bengal, Assam and increasingly Andhra Pradesh etc are not too far behind. The 3M thugs and the Dravidians rejoice at persecuting Hindus in their own country, yet you deny the fact. It's like the Dravidian kicks you in public and tells you to your face that he is kicking you. Yet, you negate his aggression and deny getting kicked by anybody. I object to the pseudo secular attitude of denying aggression against Hindus by inimical forces out to annihilate Hindu civilisation.
Your post is typical of the short public memory that afflicts Indian dhimmocracy. It is this disease that allows scum like Karunanidhi, Deve Gowda, Ram Vilas Paswan etc to get elected repeatedly....
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