Vishwesha Tirtha Swamiji of Pejawar Math said on Tuesday that ‘pankti bheda’ (separate seating arrangements for Brahmins and non-Brahmins for meals) was not being followed in Sri Krishna Math/Temple.
Addressing presspersons here, the seer said all people ate together at the math/temple.
Expressing displeasure over “too much media attention” on the practices followed at the math/temple and ‘Ashta Maths’ (eight maths of Udupi), he said nobody questioned the practices followed in places like Sringeri, Dharmasthala, and Kukke Subrahmanya.
The seer said in 2004 when Admar Math – the then Paryaya Math — decided to build a new structure replacing the dilapidated ‘mantapa’ on the western side of the math, media named the structure ‘Kanaka Gopura’ and portrayed as if it was being demolished deliberately.
Suddenly the structure in question was linked to the times of 16th century saint-composer Kanakadasa undermining the fact that ‘mantapa’ was built in 1910 by the then seer of Krishnapur Math, he said.
To another question, the seer said he had backed a proposal to audit the financial transactions of the maths on a regular basis — a suggestion mooted by the then Muzrai Minister late V.S. Acharya — although heads of the maths in other places were opposed to the idea. “All I am saying is that if the government wants to control, it should control all the seers and not just target the seers of the Ashta Maths”, he said.
He said that a secular government should not interfere in the matters of temples.
