It was nearly 2700 years ago that Tiruppanalwar, born in a ‘lower caste’, was carried from the banks of the river Cauvery into the Srirangam Ranganatha Swamy temple by a priest, which was hailed then as ‘Munivahana Utsavam’. In the present circumstances when discrimination in the name of caste and class is rampant, the same scene was enacted recently at Hyderabad, where C.S. Rangarajan, the priest at the famed Chilkur Balaji temple, carried a Dalit devotee Aditya Parasri into the Ranganatha Swamy temple in Jiyaguda amid fanfare.
“The idea is to show that Sanatana Dharma treated everyone as equal before God and the so-called discrimination crept into the system in the recent times,” Chilkur Rangarajan told the media here on Thursday.
Narrating his experience, Mr. Rangarajan said he had considered the Dalit devotee Aditya Parasri as the holy Tiruppanalwar himself when he carried him into the temple. “It is heartening that my small step coincided with the millennial appearance celebrations of Sri Vaishnavite savant Bhagawad Ramanuja, who had fought for a casteless and egalitarian society,” he said. He said that the ‘Kaisika Purana’ also showed that a Brahmin surrendered before a Scheduled Tribe devotee and attained salvation.
Admitting that a bold step like his could be near impossible in an endowments-run temple, Mr. Rangarajan hoped that his act would serve as a guiding light and let the government think on practising equality in its temples. While announcing the appointment of Kalyanapuram H. Vijayakumar as Rayalaseema regional convener of Temples Protection Movement, he thanked Sri Vaishnava Seva Sangam, Hindu Dharmacharya Pratishtan, Hindu Devalaya Pratishtana Peetham, Jiyargudem Ranganatha Devalayam, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Archaka Samakhya for supporting his feat.
