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 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> You can search right from your browser? It's easy and it's free. See how. http://us.click.yahoo.com/_7bhrC/NGxNAA/yQLSAA/.itolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Azhvar EmberumAnAr JeeyAr ThiruvadigalE Saranam http://www.vedics.net Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ramanuja/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: ramanuja-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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