Thursday, November 05, 2009

Jobless tribal youths turn temple priests in Bhadrachalam

nov 5th, 2009

and a good thing too. else they would have become christists or communist terrorists.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: sri



Jobless tribal youths turn priests
BV Ramana Reddy & B Satyanarayana Reddy
03 Nov 2009

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Jobless+tribal+youths+turn+priests&artid=wF0rHyhh29c=&SectionID=e7uPP4%7CpSiw=&MainSectionID=fyV9T2jIa4A=&SectionName=EH8HilNJ2uYAot5nzqumeA==&SEO=

BHADRACHALAM:
Almost 60 temples in Bhadrachalam division of Khammam district are all
set to have archakas to conduct the daily poojas, which these temples
have missed over the last many years, for lack of archakas.It is
estimated that more than 80 temples, some even as old as 100 years and
above have been lying unattended, thanks to lack of priests to look
after and conduct the daily poojas.

Looking at this, an NGO organization, Seva Bharathi, decided to revive
these old temples and give them back their glory. They set out to find
interested priests, who would work in these remote villages, some deep
inside the forest adjacent to villages.But, they could not find even one
willing to go to these villages and work. Subsequently, they hit upon an
idea, following which they decided to pick up unemployed tribal youths
from the villages close to these temples and teach them the rituals of
worshipping the deities.The only condition needed was that these youth
need to have been educated at least upto 5th standard in Telugu medium
and be able to read a newspaper.

Though the NGOs members set out quite apprehensively, doubtful of
finding somebody interested, they could zero in on almost 40 such youths
from many of these villages, who showed interest.Subsequently, all these
people were sent to the vedic school for training at Tirupati in the
Sweta Bhavan which is run by the TTD. All these 40 students, all tribals
from Bhadrachalam, Kunavaram, VR Puram and Chintur mandals of Khammam
district, learnt reading slokas, Yoga, Kesanamathi (a ritualistic
procedure) besides pooja methods being followed in Tirumala and
Bhadrachalam temples


1 comment:

Shankara said...

A excellent move in the right direction. We Hindus have to break down these barriers of caste and integrate the fringe elements in our society.

This is what I call a social revolution and cultural awareness. Let all of us involve our maid servants, drivers, sweepers and their families into our daily life and religious festivals. Read more about this at the link below

Vijay Lohitsa
http://sowingseedsofthought.blogspot.com/2009/04/hindu-social-revolution-and-cultural.html