Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president Prayar Gopalakrishnan on Sunday denied that he had announced the construction of a temple at Ponnambalamedu but said he strongly pitched for one.
His “ retraction” came days after Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran said rather accusingly that Mr. Gopalakrishnan had not consulted the government on the matter.
Mr. Gopalakrishnan, a former Congress legislator, said the public expression of his yearning as a devotee to raise a “temple in gold” at the “sacred spot” had been misinterpreted as an official pronouncement.
(The 1,200 m high knoll in the Western Ghats is a key element in the Sabarimala lore. The religiously important Makaravilakku ritual is staged annually at the vantage point. Lakhs of devotees congregate at Pamba and Sabarimala to witness the spectacle, many of them ardently believing it to be a natural phenomenon. The event is a major money spinner for the TDB and crowds have increased annually. The spot falls under the Ranni Forest Division and is deemed ecologically sensitive.)
In 2016, the TDB had requested the Central government to allot 2.5 hectare of the “strategically and spiritually important area for development.”
In the memorandum, the TDB had admitted that the priest of the Ganapathy temple at Pampa conducted “deeparadhana” at the spot on Makarasankramam.
Mr. Gopalakrishna leaned heavily on the “findings” of astrological divinations conducted at Sabarimala Devasthanam since 1985 to emphatically claim that an ancient temple existed in the spot in days of yore.
It had been looted and the Ganapathy idol spirited away. The remnants of the temple are still visible at the spot.
The astrologers had suggested that the temple be rebuilt and ritual worship reinstated lest its state of disrepair will “affect” the “divinity” of the presiding deity at Sabarimala. The spot should be guarded against any kind of desecration and a new temple constructed there, he said.
The hilltop was “directly opposite”to the Sabarimala shrine as the crow flies. But it was not easily accessible and “is prone to security threat.” The proposed temple will not be open to the public nor TDB officials, including the president. It would be visited only by priests on Makaravilakku day to conduct rituals.
