Bathing the big deities during the installation

[Guest guest]

Dandavad. Prabhupada kijaya!

 

I have been reading this conversation and I must say that I fully sympathize

with Padmalochan prabhu and his mood of trying to involve all the devotees

in this wonderful service.

 

However, in my discussions with the Mayapur management about this I found a

number of very practical problems:

 

1) The deities are very tall. just to get up high enough to bathe them

requires getting on top of a large temporary structure.

2) There are five deities to be bathed.

3) There are probably upwards of 800 persons who would be likely candidates

to be included if persons other than the pujaris were involved. These

include:

 

Srila Prabhupada initiated disciples

GBC and Sannyasis

Temple Presidents and GBC deputies

Twice Initiated devotees who also donated for the installation

 

4) There are elaborate parts of the abhishek which should only be done by

the pujaris which will take quite some time.

 

PUt this altogether and it appears very impractical to have "everyone", or

even the select group mentioned above bathe the deities directly.

 

(I think it is obvious that there is a vast difference in logistics between

this abhishek and a Srila Prabhupada abhishek)

 

Even if you could somehow manage to bring the time for each person to bathe

the deities to around 30 seconds, you could only do 120 persons per hour.

 

It seems unfair to all the devotees who could not possibly be included in

this service to have to sit and watch for 6-7 hours while this select group

enjoys the privilege of personally bathing the deities.

 

On the other hand it is possible to:

 

1) engage all devotees in bringing the substances for bathing to the

installation thus directly participating.

2) setup at least 5 sets of smaller Sri Pancha-tattva utsav deities in

different places and let everyone directly bathe these deities. To my

understanding utsva-murtis receive service and give darshan as an

"extension" of the archana murtis.

 

In the circumstances, I believe we should accept this as the best

arrangement. And I understand this is what is planned.

 

During Srila Prabhupada's presence, to my knowledge, it was only he himself

or 1-2 brahmanas who performed the installation abhishek. THerefore, I

believe that the above arrangements should be accepted as extraordinary

blessings.

 

I would love to see all devotees participate, but I just can't imagine how

it would be done.

 

Your servant,

Pancaratna das