VML-3/8/01

[Guest guest]

Those who cannot afford to have a chapel go to banks of a river, or a

lake, or the sea if they live at the seaside, but people sometimes go

to worship in a temple by making salutation to the image. There their

duty to the temple ends. Therefore, you see, it has been held from

the most ancient times in our country, legislated upon by Manu, that

it is a degenerating occupation to become a temple priest. Some of

the books say it is so degrading as to make a Brahmin worthy of

reproach. Just as with education, but in a far more intense sense

with religion, there is the other idea behind it that the temple

priests who take fees for their work are making merchandise of sacred

things. So you may imagine the feelings of that boy when he was

forced through poverty to take up the only occupation open to him,

that of a temple priest.