I am deeply disturbed by the insult my friend & her niece had to endure in the premises of the Triplicane Parthasarathy Temple, chennai.
The niece is differently abled and walks with the help of crutches and the special shoes. She was stopped & ridiculed by the people at the temple for having come into the temple with her 'Shoes' on. Even after explaining her situation (even though it is visually seen that she is a polio affected person, she was asked to remove it and come inside. When she explained her inability to walk without the shoes, she was asked to go back.
My friend and she were heaped with insults by the crowd that had gathered by then. It seems they had committed a grave sin by coming in with 'shoes' on, even though they educated enough to read the board that said 'leave ur footwear' outside.
My friend & her niece had to return with a heavy heart. They did not want to complain abt this issue for they are living alone here far away from their near & dear. But I could not hold my self..so my pent up anger is out as blogs.
May be there was another board that said 'Leave Humanity outside' :-(
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12 comments:
Maybe they could have provideda clean footwear. That was my original thought, echoed in this FAQ.
From a Temple FAQ:
24. Why do we not wear shoes when we come into a temple?
Summary Answer:
Shoes are not clean since they go everywhere. Since a temple is a clean place with pure energies, we leave unclean things outside.
Detailed Answer:
There are a few views offered on this subject:
1. Shoes go everywhere and can collect unwanted energies. To keep them out of the temple shoes are left outside.
2. Second, generally temple practices encourage minimum amount of covering, subject to what would be considered decent in the respective social setting.
This may be related to the ability for energy interchange – the temple being a highly energized place. In that context, among various parts of the body, the soles of the feet are considered points of significant interchange of energy. This way when one walks in the temple bare foot, the interchange of energy gives the bliss and high of being in the temple.
While the two views noted above are the popular reasons for not wearing footwear inside the temple, there are some additional observations worth noting with regard to footwear use in temples.
There are certain temples in northern India that allow wooden Paadukas to be worn during winter months. In fact, the temple itself provides the wooden Paadukas for a small fee, essentially ensuring that the footwear that goes everywhere outside the temple does not come into the temple. In Udupi Krishna temple, the eight Acharyas only [not devotees] are allowed wooden Paadukas anywhere in the temple premises except in the shrine area itself.
The action by taken by the people who stopped the lady is not in good taste. To stop these kinds of incidents from recurring, I think we should let the temple administrative officials know about what happened in that premises. Let us give them an option of figuring a way to handle such special cases.
Anon: That was a one big answer. Anyways, all this holds hold if u have two normal legs. When the girl in question is a polio affected person, your aurgument doesnt hold water.
The girls didnot want to get into any controversy & thats why they didnt want to take it up with the authorities.
Hmm...Most cases go this way only.
You have a pillow cover like cloth bag caled "overshoes" used in Operation Theatres,for the purpose of sterility.The same may be suggested for devotees of your friend's kind.I am sorry we are still in a childish world,though our sctiptures on Gods reveal great things on Humanity.
I stand with you that this would have definitely hurted that person...but i feel the temple guys should have handled it in a better way....But from the temple point of view this is a very ancient temple and they cannot admit anyone wearing shoes and that is the practice in any south indian temple and you cannot forgo it.....for example in kerala in anantha padhmanabhan temple they ask us to wear mundu ...even females have to wear tat dhothi and at time they check females to see whether are wearing any pants inside the dhothis...which is really bad and make us feel awkward....but we shld bring such things to the temple administrators to figure out a way.....I am sure we will find a solution.
Glad you posted this. I think that it a horrifying example of how inhuman we can be in the name of religion. As soon as we say things like "ancient practice", "old tradition", "religious custom" etc, we can find ways to excuse and sanction the worst excesses. So, tomorrow if a temple insists that it has an ancient and sacred ritual to sacrifice humans, will we stand by and watch?
God is everybody's god, the right to access him is everybody's. He created the disabled person -- why will he not allow her inside his temple? With or without shoes? At worst, if it's a rabid temple, the priests can ask her to clean the soles of her shoes -- she can easily do this by standing in a pool of shallow water, without being put through unnecessary trouble or pain.
God has no rules. It is inferior human beings clinging to petty power who make the rules. I wish we would all gather up the will to take this up with the temple authorities. Not only should they change the rule but they should be made to apologise to the girl. If possible, please tell me exactly when this happened.
I just visited a Hindu temple today and I totally understand your frustration.
The rule of no shoes allowed in the temple is simply stupid. Ok, if you ask people to take off their shoes, please keep the floor clean. If you can't keep it clean, at least please keep it dry. The bottom of my socks become sticky brownish yellow after the temple visit. It's kinda gross.
Take shoes off in some places, like Taj Mahal, actually make sense. No shoes allows for the sake of keeping the place clean or from tears and wears to the floor are reasonable request. Come on, the Hindu temple is no where near historical and it has a concrete floor! The idea of taking off shoes equals to respecting the God is simply stupid! If the shoe is dirty, the temple floor is even more dirty, the temple keeper must really disrespecting the Gods. Why don't they make people take off their pants to symbolize the respect to Gods?
If one day I start my religion and build my temple, I will make much better rule than the stupid Hindus no shoes rule to symbolize the respect of God. In my temple, no watches or any time keeping devices is allowed. My argument has two folds. On the theory front, measuring time is disrespecting the God of eternity, who transcend above time. On the practical front, isn't it nice to forget about time and the trouble of life inside a quiet temple where you can pray to God or meditate?
what the temple authorities said was correct.even if the temple floor is dirty ,it is sanctified by the veedhi purapaddu of perumal and the veda mantras which are recited.you cant tell hindus are stupid because of this.there are more stupid people in the world.everyone knows that footwaear is not allowed into temples.then you cannot argue with the temple authorities for it.a rule is always a rule.for everybody
HI ALL
A TEMPLE is a HOLY place--Shoes are NOT allowed Becos ITS disrespect to Presiding deities in temple--Is it ALLOWED in THIRUMALA temple ??
Humanity shd NOT be CONFUSED here
TEMPLE authrts are FULLY justified in refusing entry with footwear
Hope all DUTIFUL HINDUS DO understand and do not waste time on this Ramanuja Dasan
i happened to visit the so called famous triplicane parthasarathy temple ( with all due respects to perumal ) , supposed to be one of the 108 vaishnavite shrines today on account of VAIKAUNTA EKADESI .
I guess the authorities of the temple are bent on chasing away perumal from the temple. heights of heights of atrocity was what i saw. we were there at 7.00 am and there were two lines , one was free darshan queue ( very long) and the other was 100 rs per head . we bought 100 rs tickets but the queue jus didnt seem to move .
as we entered the temple, we realised why the Q was not moving ? we could see groups of people of various sizes entering the temple through another small gate because they KNEW SOMEBODY THERE.
as we were watching 20 such groups entered the temple , and it was shocking to see the temple authorities opening the gates for them. we jus coudnt digest it.
the main idea of paying 100 rs per head was to have the darshan god quickly but they made us wait for 2 hrs but were happily sending others. i couldnt imagine the plight of people in the general Q. the length of our 100 rs Q was jus half a km . and inside the sactum sanctorum they were asking the devotees to move very fast jus like in tirupathi . But it took 2 hrs for us to traverse the 500metres distance....
even in tirupathi, for 50 rs tickets , it takes less than 2 hrs for darshan. but in chennai , its jus too much . we speak of politicians trying to cheat people and make money. the temple authorities are doing nothing less. they have to realise the ALIMIGHTY PERUMAL IS WATCHING EVERYTHING AND THEY HAVE TO ANSWER HIM . THE TEMPLE WOULD HAVE EASILY MADE RS 500000 TODAY. but sadly , they did not even distribute prasadam to the devotees . in tirupathi all the devotees are offered prasadam and food on all days . but here inspite of the huge collection of money the temple did not arrange free prasadam on this special. we visited two other temples today , one is anantha padmanabhan temple , adyar and second santhana srinivasa perumal temple ,mogappair, in both temples they distributed free prasadhams to EVERYONE. god knows what they do with that money in triplicane temple . that 100 rs was jus a waste. I would have been happy if they had distributed prasadam atleast to the poor with the money collected for special darshan. , but they did not ..
its very surprising to see the comments of few "great" ramanuja dasans. its common sense that people are not allowed inside the temples (be it any temple) with shoes/slippers.but this rule doesn't hold god for the person in question here since she is physically challenged. no acharam/anunstanam/madi will hold good before bakthi/humanity. please have some sense before posting in blogs. i am dead sure the almighty parathasarathy would have cursed the persons who have done it. after all bhagavatha aparachamam is more sinful than bagavan apacharam.no wonder triplicane becomes the hot spot for kalai fight. its stupid fellows like you who spoil ramanuja madam.. sorry for being rude. but nothing wrong in calling a spade a spade.
Thanks i like your blog very much , i come back most days to find new posts like this!Good effort.I learnt it
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