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Wednesday, July 06, 2005

in the name of religion

I recently visited the meenakshi amman temple in madurai.. the temple that is supposed to become one of the wonders of the world. I found something that was shocking and something that i was ashamed off.
It had a board that said only hindus are allowed.
Now, does taj mahal say that only muslims are welcome?
Does the leaning tower of pisa say that only christians are welcome?
Does the colloseum say only romans are welcome?

I understand that these are not places of worship!! They are wonders of the world that illustrates the architectural brilliance, the magic that some people had in their hands to construct awe-inspiring structures like these!!

But i also understand that a temple is a holy-place where the presence of god can not only be felt but also seen. Does the meenakshi amman bless only hindus? would she shun away from christians and muslims? I recently went to a church .. and i noticed that whenever the priest spoke about god he spoke abt the almighty without any reference to jesus, but when he spoke abt service to god then he gave jesus as an example. Simple though it may be, it made me realise that God is the same and can be felt and seen by anybody it is only that we categorise it in ways we want!!!
Religion is only the means of reaching god..and the means alone cannot become the purpose

I strongly object that board in the temple which said that only hindus are allowed inside the shrine.. for once i was ashamed of being there and not being able to correct it.
Later that day, when my parents had left and i visited the temple again, i found the authorities and asked them the purpose of the board.. they seemed to be baffled that such a notion should arise in my mind!! they assumed it was a perfectly natural thing to do.. and i was probably being very uncouth abt having mentioned it!!

Should i mention the attorcities in this world that are commited in the name of religion.. there are bombings in ayodhya for which our very dear lal krishna advani wants to organise nation-wide protest.. let me tell u if these people have any shame left in them then they would retire when they still have some pride left in them!!

Only hindus allowed.. may god save them!!!

3 comments:

vignesh said...

These kind of prohibitions are there in many places. :-(
Nice blog.
vignesh

Mama said...

first, am surprised a temple is on the wonders list. anyways thats a long way to go with the decision in 2007. its based on online votes and i found that there are too many temples on the list.

first of all, places of worship should not be nominated for such things because the sanctity of the place is lost.
christianity is a religion thats trying to embrace the whole world.
and its the richest religion.
and its written in their religion to spread the religion and get ppl into it.
hinduism is terribly on the decline in today's world. whilst it can be only preserved through the vedas/scriptures and religious rites, making a publicity of our temples will make us forget the value of the sacred rites.
this is just my opinion.

Meera said...

@vignesh: thanks!
&K narayanan: i do agree with you when you say that places of worship shd not be nominated for such things..
sometimes i have a feeling that people forget what is takes to be a hindu..its not something abt jus blindly clinging on to the religion but by living it.
essentially, this is one religion which is more of a way of life than anything else.But people seem to cling on jus rituals and beleifs which is why we feel like revolting.. if u are the narayanan i think u are.. are u in london? hope u were pretty far from the blasts... if ur not that narayanan forget i asked!! :))