Monday, April 28, 2008

Women priests in a Hindu temple and other miscelleny

S.N.V. Sudhir writes in AP temple celebrates womanhood :
"In the temple complex of Devipuram, womanhood is celebrated in more ways than one. The mother goddess is the central deity of the temple and more importantly, the priests are mostly women. These young women, who have chosen priesthood as their vocation, vouch that they feel empowered after studying the scriptures. They have had rigorous training in the Vedas and have been systematically taught all the duties and rights of priests. "
In an earlier postMuslim is a priest in Hindu temple Sudhir wrote:
"Mira, who used to work as a gardener at the site chosen by the archeologists for excavations of Bhuddhist aramas on the hill Seethammavarikonda, found a three feet statue of the Maa Durga during his regular work of cutting trees. He says it changed the entire course of his life. From that day onwards the Goddess used to come in his dreams, he used to see her wherever he went and whatever he did. A sort of unknown holy feeling developed in within him. Then he decided to personally serve the goddess by performing pujas and other rituals."
I accidentally came across this interesting blog while looking for information on Jinavallabha, a younger brother of Pampa. Apparently there is a Kurkyala(Kurikyala) inscrption interpreted by P.V. Parabrahma Sastry (P.V.P.Sastry). From this inscription, Professor Sastry deduced that Jinavallabha assisted Malliya Rechana in writing Kavijanasraya. This means that Rechana lived at least one hundred years before Nannaya, who is considered Adikavi (first poet)of Telugu. I heard of this possibilty before from anarticle of Iravatham Mahadevan but this is the first concrete evidence modulo confirming the dating and details of the Kurkkyala inscription. There is very little information about Kurkyala on the internet but Kuryala is in Gangadhar(am) Mandal and the inscriptions are more often termed Gangadharam inscription(s). The word Gangadharam led to Mr. Sudhir who mentioned a person Gangadharam.

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