Dear Shri iniyan,
I find that you have an emotional bias in favour of purohitars and temple priests. That will make an objective discussion, impossible. That apart, it seems you are contradicting yourself in some points.
I wonder how many of the Purohits earn in lakhs. I wonder how many of you have visited Mylapore in the morning. The purohits congregate around Kapaleeswarar temple. You will then understand the reality of the situation. The rarity of the purohiots earning in lakhs.
When I say 'purohitar', I mean a person who has qualified himself by study in vedapatasala and subsequent internship of some experienced vaadhyaar, and is thus well-conversant with all the religious rites and poojas etc. Such vaadhyaars are very few (at least in these parts) and so almost all of them earn quite well as is generally seen by their life style (own houses, car/scooter, children mostly in IT or banking jobs and so on).
Apart from these, there exists another group of so-called
vaideeka braahmanans - usually old men/senior citizens. Some of this group do not even know 'tathaastu' and where to utter that word. But these are also an integral and, perhaps, equally crucial factor of our vaideeki rites. But even here, what I find in Trivandrum (and in cities like Kochi - as per reports from people) is that many of these people will usually be found in dirty clothes, unkempt, and so on which gives the look of a poor person whereas, in reality, they are comfortably provided otherwise, but have found this to be a good and effortless way of earning some more and thus enrich their lives.
For example, one person has only daughter who is in IT, living abroad and has married an Ezhava but she has purchased a street house for her father and regularly remits money. But he (the father) also earns quite well as a
vaideeka braahmanan.
Another man happens to be my school mate. His three sons are well-educated (thanks to his working as virtual sole manager of his elder brother's coffee powder store) and employed in banks/GOI. He can stay with any of his sons AFAIK but since he gets enough income as
vaideeka braahmanan, he continues to live in his own old street house.
Yet another is a retired railway employee. He has by now learned "bhagavathi sevai" and assists the Namboodiri/Potti priests of repute in this line and gets a good income, besides his railway pension and other (free travel) facilities. I can give the position of many others also.
These people have an employment centre and every evening one will find a crowd of decrepit people crowding in that place in order to know whether they have any assignment on the next day and if so where, who is the main vaadhyaar, what function it is, etc. May be what you see in Mylapore is similar to this, I do not know, but I am guessing.
Yes, there may be a few people who are poorer than these. But the condition of even such people is not badly off, considering that they have little knowledge of mantras and this is a job with mnimum physical exertion.
In the interior places in Travancore, vaadhyaars are simply NA and the brahmana samoohams are prepared to compensate anyone willing to reside in the center and give his services, very generously, as seen from some advertisements appearing in the magazine of the KBA.
Another feature which I have sen very often is that the Brahmin Community is not being able to tolerate any Purohitar doing well. I have heard snide comments abouut Purohitars having a mobile phone and going around in a scooter. These are the facilities enjoyed even by a vegetable vendor. But when a Purohitar has these the Brahmins have to pass snide remarks about these.
Frankly it has been proved time and again that the Brahmin community does not respect the Purohitars and do not want them to do well in life.
To an extent I agree with you. My analysis is that the tabras only worship money and pavishu - these two are their main gods. So, if a vaadhyaar has his son as an IT executive and lives with his son in a palatial house etc., that vaadhyaar is comparatively more respected. At the other end, even very well-off vaadhyaars even today insist on a cut-back from the
vaideeka braahmanan, described above, because the vaadhyaars themselves speak very disparagingly about these
vaideeka braahmanans, who, in turn, let out all the unsavoury secrets of the vaadhyaars and their greed, miserliness, how they cheat you in regard to various daanams, and so on.
Thus, to a large extent, it is this vaideeki group itself which digs its own grave, so to say.
So you do not consider the Gurukkal Community to be Brahmins at all. What about the Battacharyas and Vaikasana Brahmins? There are temples like Sankarankovil where the Smarthas officiate.
Yes, I am considering tabras only, for the present. The priests at Sankarankovil earn well outside of their salary; I know this from reliable sources in TLY.
There are a number of temples in Tamil Nadu which have hardly any devotee visiting it. I wonder how many people are visiting the Pundarikakshan temple In Thriuccherai or the Siva temple at Mazharpadi?
There may be such temples but unless we have reliable info about the priests, their economic condition, etc., it is not worthwhile to pre-guess that there must be one or more impoverished priest/s attached to each such temple.
BTW what is the latest monthly salary paid by the denaswom for a junior maelsanthi. The Junior gets nothing in thattu.
It is like a junior clerk. Here the junior melshanthis have to be given their share as otherwise they will see that the senior melshanti is fumigated out of service. As I explained, it is a grand coalition of the senior melshanti, his juniors, the devaswom officer i/c of the temple and even the devaswom employees, including, possibly the sweeper!
In Tamil Nasu the temple priest is ranked below the sweeper.
But the cause of this state of affairs is not the Dravidian administration. But the Brahmin community. Even when they were in charge they paid the temple priests a pittance. The community held the temple priests in contempt. treated them like -----
No somments. But temples have been sources for many to squeeze money, lands, etc., for their personal aggrandisement, from time immemmorial, probably. That practice continues even now.
You are saying that all of them are rich and their demand is unconscionable and is pure extortion. I only wish that you were true. Our Sasthirigal in Chennai was working in a bank in addition to Purohitam. But he ensured that his children were properly educated. Two of them are in U.S and he shuttles berween India and U.S.
He did the right thing. As a purohithar you are treated like ---. The community wants you to be poor and starve. But they will not help you. Anything which is reasonable is considered exhortion. They would like to pay you Re. 1 for Tharpanam. They will give you Dakshina which would be less than the auto fare from their house to the temple. You are treated a social ----
But then You are supposed to learn evrything and do everything as per the scriptures.
Good yajamanas get good Purohitas. Bad yajamanas get bad purohitas. The present day Yajamanas do not deserve any Purohitas.
The day is not far when you can not get one for love or money. It is time to put an end to this expoitation. Even today many of the smaller cities in Tamil Nadu do not have any Purohitas.
I agree that today's tabras get purohits who they deserve. As to your remarks about the past, do you think anyone will even agree that the tabras behaved in such nasty manner towards their own purohits? I doubt, because the efforts here are to paint as rosy a picture about ourselves as possible.
We will still have temple priests becaue these Brahmins are devoted to temple GODs. Thy donot beieve in the maxim காசேதான் கடவுளடா
I very much doubt this; temple priests stick even today because they find it profitable, somehow, to throwing it away. It is very very rare that a temple priest looks at the idol as anything more than a mere piece of stone with which he is able to fool many so-called bhaktas and make a living, if possible.
