THE SABARIMALA IMBROGLIO

  

It appears that the Supreme Court (SC) has opened a can of worms by its order pertaining to entry of ladies Into Sabarimala. At the outset let me affirm here that I am a Hindu by birth and is not against any religious beliefs .Even before the issue was considered by SC I used to argue with like minded parties like friends about the need to changethe restrictions for ladies for visiting sabarimala. In the present order the SC has only mentioned that if any lady wished to visit sabarimala and offer prayers , she should not bebarred on the ground that her age is between 10 and 50. The court has never said that all the ladies in the particular age group SHOULD visit sabarimala. The supreme court has seen the issue in the light of constitutional provisions only and held that the present restrictions imposed

by devaswom board are against the spirit of constitution . I do not understandwhy this has been termed as an encroachment on the rituals of the temple, rights of the mantri family etc. Aa far as I understand SC has not said what type of pooja should be made or how a particular pooja has to be conducted etc, which could have been interpreted as interfering with rituals at the temple. During the last about 60 years (which happens to be in my memory area) i have noticed many changes in the rituals at sabarimala. In my childhood days, my elder relatives used to observe the 41 days' vrutham religiously before they prepared the irumudi and proceeded for darshan of lord ayyappa either during the mandala pooja period ending on 25th or 26thDecember or later during the makaravilakku happening on 14th Jan. The temple used to be opened for about 10 to 15 days only during this period when all the devotees used to complete the darshan and return. And all the devotees used to travel the whole distance on foot for want of any transportation facility .  The devotees used to wear the black dothies and used to take bath in the morning and evening daily. Normally they used to stay at home only during the vrutham period , lest they may get ' impure' by coming into contact with somebody who is having 'pula' (15 days period after death of a family member) or 'valayma' (56 days period after birthday of a child in the family). If a death or birth happened in the family of the devotees during the vrutham period, he used to break the vrutham and postpone the journey to the next year!

Later on the temple was kept opened for 41 days during the mandalam period and later on for 14 days during makaravilakku period for the convenience if the devotees. This was further increased by keeping the temple opened for firat five days of all Malayalam months to enable the devotees have a comfortable darshan of the deity. And the devotees also started using various modes of transports including air conditioned cars for visiting the temple! And for the sake of convenience the devotees used to wear the beads garland (mala) on the day of their journey to the shrine only instead of wearing it on first day of malayalam month Vrischikam. (Start of mandalam period). And the size of the irumudi which used to be carried by the devotees shrunk from the bulky one to a miniature one too. All these were done as per the convenience of the devotees and nobody objected to these . However, in spite of all these improvisations there was no demand for changing the restriction put on the ladies of menstruating age all these days. Now that somebody has requested for such a change, this could have been acceded to by the board or temple authorities without allowing it to be drawn to the highest court leading to the present situation.

Personally , I believe that such a restriction were put on the ladies considering the difficulties they may face during the menstruation period during the trekking to the hill shrine , which used to take days together ! Even after improvement in transport facilities which has cut short the period of trek to the shrine to just one or two days, there is no meaning in continuing with this restriction imposed long back. As  such no devout hindu ladies visit any temple, leave alone sabarimala, during the menstruation period of 4 or 5 days. All other days they do visit the temple which can be easily followed in the case of sabarimala too. The argument of the deity being 'naishthika brahmachari' etc are absurd, i believe. A google search into the meaning of the words "Naishthika Brahmachari" will itself call the bluff if these people. As per the interpretation in holy books aa reported in google "Naishthika Brahmachari" is one who maintains celibacy in spite of being surrounded by ladies and hence this should not be held as a plea to prevent ladies of a.particular age group to the shrine .  (In the quote lord Sreekrishna has been shown as Naishthika Brahmachari!)

Coming to the present agitation against the SC verdict , i feel the gullible devotees have been drawn to the streets by some vested interests. It is interesting to note that ladies in the barred age group carry the pictures of lord ayyappa (whom they call brahmachari) during these protest matches which itself shows the hollowness of their conviction . It is high time the well educated malayalis participating in the protests realised their folly and dissociated from such activities .