Temple priests - velukkudi Swami Cds.

[Guest guest]

Sri:

 

Adiyen has been churning these and a whole bunch of

other related questions for the past couple weeks.

 

If you can, please get a hold of Sri U Ve Velukkudi

Krishnan Swami's Upanyasam on the 10 Upanishads, and

please listen to Mundakopanishad. Most of our

questions are answered very lucidly in there. It

defenitely helps understand that these issues were

dealt not only by Emberumanar, but by Sages before

too.

 

The CDs are available at:

http://vedics.net/products/audio/vks/index.html

 

At least adiyen's puny brain got some answers.

 

Azhwar Emberumanar Jeeyar Thiruvadigale Sharanam.

Adiyen Ramanuja Dasan.

 

--- vedavalli ranganathan <vedaranga > wrote:

 

> Dear all,

>

> I have a few questions to ask regarding the topic of

> who can act as a priest in the temple:

>

> 1) There are many padal sthalams which do not have

> proper archakas or, the archakas are doing

> kainkaryam,

> which certainly falls way short of the originally

> established standards.This being the case, it

> doesn't

> seem far-fetched to think that a time may come when

> there won't be any jAti brahmana left in the

> village.

> In such occassions, can a person who is not a jAti

> brahmana take up the service of the deity? If he is

> qualified, well versed in vedas and pancaratra, is

> he

> still barred? In such cases, is it more important to

> serve the archa or follow the tradition?

>

> 2) Regarding those who are non-brahmanas by birth

> taking up the posts of a few brahmanas in the

> temples,

> is it also not true that the brahmanas in thousands

> have taken up the posts of so many sudras,

> kshatriyas

> and Vaishyas and thus clearly transgressed what the

> Lord says in Bhagavad Gita? For a brahmana to do

> somebody else's duty, there needs to be an

> emergency.

> What emergency was/is there that the majority have

> forsaken their duties?

>

> 3) While it is accepted by all that only brahmanas

> can

> perform certain tasks,isn't there still a debate as

> to

> what decides a brahmana-Is it birth alone or nature

> and activities ?

>

> 4) I heard that in Ramayanam, there is a mention of

> Sita devi undergoing upanayanam and performing

> sandhya

> vandanam.Also, that in the vedas, there really

> wasn't

> any prohibition in imparting the knowledge of the

> vedas to non-jAti brahmanas and there were numerous

> vedic sages who were not brahmanas by birth, but

> were

> accepted , because of their nature and that it was a

> later day twist to let only jAti brahmanas perform

> the

> tasks and barring everyone else, leading to

> casteism.

> Is it true? Does anyone have more information on

> this?

>

>

> I personally feel, not many can live upto the

> standard

> required to act as an archaka.Atleast for the

> pittance

> amount paid to the archakas.Secondly, there will be

> such a strong lobby against them within the temple

> and

> amongst the public that they cannot survive.On the

> brighter side, the archakas may even get a decent

> pay

> hike!!

>

> My sincere apologies if I have committed any

> offenses

> in hurting anyone's feelings.The Government's order

> aside, we must look into the issue dispassionately.

>

> dasi

> vedavalli ranganathan

>

>

>

>

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