The COVID-19 pandemic has turned its unforgiving eyes on India. I am pained to see the death toll mounting in the country of my parents’ birth, and I eagerly watch for news that a rapid mass vaccination campaign may stem the outbreak in India as it has done in other countries. COVID-19 does not discriminate. The disease has touched lives at all levels of Indian society, including those responsible for the operation and maintenance of various religious institutions. The famed Tirumala temple is no exception. This week, COVID-19 claimed the life of an iconic figure in the temple’s history, A.S. Narayana Deekshitulu, who served as one of its chief priests for 50 years.
From 2007 to 2013, I had the privilege of writing a book on the priest traditions of the Tirumala temple. I spent time with these priests, including Deekshitulu and his sons, whose family welcomed me as a visitor. The wonderful heritage of ancient temples in southern India extends beyond the magnificent structures, beautiful deities, and precious ornaments. It includes traditions, customs, and festivals — and it is the priests who perform the rituals and maintain the institutions and facilities that attract thousands of worshippers each year.
This heritage is codified by a set of rulebooks, or Agamas , that date back thousands of years. In Tirumala, for example, the 5,000-year-old Vaikhanasa Agama includes strict rules on the hereditary succession of priests (called mirasidhars ) and sets aside a share of daily temple offerings ( prasadams ) as income for the priests. Most important, perhaps, the historical traditions impose strict checks and balances between the priests, the temple’s secular administration, and an associated pontifical matham headed by the Pedda Jeeyangar (who also had COVID-19 in 2020, but recovered).
The checks and balances served Tirumala well for more than 1,000 years. Under the mirasi system, hereditary priests were tasked with temple management and the performance of rituals but were also held personally accountable for the protection of the presiding deity’s priceless ornaments. The mirasi conducted an annual inventory of the temple’s valuables to ensure that all items used in worship were present and in good condition. This model ensured that the temple’s sanctity and traditions were preserved through centuries of wars, colonialism, and a succession of pandemics.
An important part of the Agamas-based system was dismantled in 1987 when the Andhra Pradesh government abolished the hereditary succession of the Tirumala priests. With this abolishment, the system of mirasi families serving annual terms and the tradition of personal accountability for the annual temple inventory were ended. The priests, including Deekshitulu, protested against the change and the case was ultimately decided in the State’s favor in 1996 by the Supreme Court of India ( Shri A.S. Narayana Deekshitulu vs State of Andhra Pradesh and Ors ).
What resulted was not, as the court predicted, a better system of temple administration or religious adherence. Rather, hired helpers and individuals with no historical stake in the temple were granted control. As a consequence, hereditary priests and pontifical heads became subordinate to a State-appointed board and officer. The hereditary priests have been slowly reabsorbed into the temple’s routine operations, but the traditional checks and balances and rights to shares in prasadams have not been restored, In addition to the priests’ loss of traditional status and responsibility, customs and traditions have also been impacted since the change in 1996. Some of these have entered into public knowledge such as when several senior officials were removed after the still unresolved loss of gold coins valued at more than ₹15 lakh. Others have involved aberrations in customs and practices.
Among the unique group of mirasidhars , A.S. Narayana Deekshitulu was exceptional. He was kind, generous, humble, and had an extraordinary strength of character. His stewardship of the temple’s rituals could lead one to visualise, in a modern sense, what solidified Sri Krishnadevaraya’s reverence for the temple during his seven visits to Tirumala. Deekshitulu exemplified the best of Hindu orthodoxy, continuing rituals to Lord Venkateswara at a replica Tirumala shrine at his home after the abolishment of the mirasi system. But he also represented the best of the Agamas system: honesty, humility, curiosity and a commitment to open debate and dialogue.
With the passing of A.S. Narayana Deekshitulu, we have lost an important representative of these core traditions. In my own reflections on Sri Deekshitulu’s life and work, I have realised his passing may be an opportunity for everyone concerned about the future of temple-based traditions to reconsider the 1996 changes imposed on Tirumala and reflect on the potential for a return — in full or in part — of the Agamas -based system that sustained key elements of India’s heritage for generations. Individuals occupy a short period of time on this earth, but institutions and traditions such as those of the Tirumala temple last much longer. The late A.S. Narayana Deekshitulu was an iconic representative of a uniquely effective system that flourished for centuries. In addition to appreciating his contributions as a priest, an effort to reinstate a modernised version of the mirasi system would be a fitting tribute to this great person.
(The writer, a medical doctor in the U.S., is the author of the book The Priests of Tirumala )
