‘Devudunnadu Jagratha,’ calls for autonomous temple system

'Devudunnadu Jagratha,' the book penned by veteran journalist MVR Sastry last December, was more or less a warning for those who want to cheat or/and challenge the great Mayavi, the God Himself, who protects and governs the world

By CS Rangarajan

Devudunnadu Jagratha,’ the book penned by veteran journalist MVR Sastry last December, is more or less a warning to those who want to cheat or/and challenge the great Mayavi, the God Himself, who protects and governs the world.

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The first copy of Sastry’s 25th book, which is based on the history of Tirumala, was presented to Dr MV Soundararajan, the 89-year-old grand visionary, who is the Convenor of the Temple Protection Movement as well as the Editor-in-Chief of ‘VAK’ magazine of Chilkoor Balaji Temple.

While recalling his motivation to write the book, MVR Sastry says, Lord Govinda inspired and instructed him to write every single word in this book and  he had felt the divine intervention of the Lord multiple times.

The matters discussed in his book regarding the Tirumala-Tirupati Devasthanams are very much applicable to the problems plaguing the temples in the two Telugu States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Hindu temples have been under the control of the Endowments Departments for the last 75 years. Today, these ancient and magnificent temples have deteriorated owing to improper maintenance under the government administration.

The ill-effects of Hindu society’s laxity were well understood and preempted by Dr Soundara Rajan, from the beginning.

Lamenting the sorry state of affairs among the Hindu community in earlier days, Sastry says “Since the first day of Challa Kondayya Commission’s formation, Soundararajan had preempted the dangers that lay in store for the temple system in the days to come. He tried his best to prevent chaos in the community. But, no one paid attention to this gentleman’s wake-up call. It seemed as if everyone pretended to be in a state of deep sleep.”

Excerpts from MVR Sastry’s book 

Another shameful aspect of government control of temples was the abolition of hereditary priesthood. This abolition of Hereditary Priesthood had evil effects on not only the prestigious community, but also on innumerable temples in thousands of villages in united Andhra Pradesh Owing to this, numerous temples were abandoned and thousands of priests’ livelihood was ruined.

Back then, the Hindu Community lacked the determination to firmly resist this brutal attack by the government on temples. There was little to no perseverance to agitate against these government “reforms”.

Various Hindu organisations in the past, lacked the courage to agitate against the irregularities of Challa Kondayya Commission’s investigation. This failure of Hindu organisations and community, consequently led to further damage under the approval of courts by law.

(The author is archaka of the Chilkur Balaji Devasthanam)