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The not-well-to-do dhivyadhEsams

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Vijay Triplicane • December 14, 1995 


     PraNamams.

     Some time back in India, I happen to discuss the issue of renovating
     dilapidated temples (in some of our divya dEsams) with a very
     knowledgeable person rooted in our sampradAya. He encouraged the idea
     very much and urged the younger generation to take more active
     interest in such matters. By himself, he is responsible for some of
     the good work done before.

     Is there anything that we can do as a group towards such good causes?

     Suggestions/Brickbats most welcome.

     Thondaradippodi,

     DilIpa dAsan.


Hello,
	Its good that this thread has comeback live again. This has been
	discussed many times without any solid proposal but for the recent
	effort for the srirangam dasaavathaaram sannidhi. In my opinion( may
	be wrong..) there are so many temples other than the reasonably well
	to do temples like srirangam, thiruppathy, thiruvallikkENi... which
	needs immediate attention and it is we , the youth of this
	generation who should take proper care and do something towards
	atleast the req'd infrastructure, vasthrams, nithya aaraadhanais
	etc. This is the most direct kainkaryam that i can think of.
	Moreover we in USA are appropriate in taking up this issue as we are
	relatively in a better position to take up this task (rupee:dollar).
	As discussed before there are several practical problems in makingh
	sure that the money is properly being used. wherever money is
	involved it kinda becomes tricky to tackle in India. Also there
	may exist some problem regarding who is to manage this money.. etc.

	So, first of all the the temples that really need attention and care
	has to be listed and as a kind of experiment we can even take a
	single temple and donate around $20 per head as we did for the
	srirangam dasaavathaara sannidhi, find a suitable trustworthy person
	to manage the funds and arrange to do something really constructive.
	Once people (in this group) find that this is really constructive
	and acheived something towards our aazhwaars' and aachaaryaa's
	goals, then we will have more confidence and enthusiasm. and we can
	continue this effort. One of aaLavandhaar's ambition was to
	popularize the thamizh maRai and can best be done by reviving the
	temples. But for those who were brought up in the dhivya dhEsams,
	not many are very much aware of the naalayiram and related things.(
	there may be exceptions, though!) As i had written before, last time
	when i visited Srirangam for the "aazhwaar mOksham" there were just
	a handful of people in the gOshti. It looked pathetic. I was
	enquiring a person, in his mid twenties ( there was only one or two
	of that age!) about why there aren't that many people? He said the
	enthusiasm / interest in these things have been gradually going down
	This is the case in "bhoolOga vaikuNdam" itself!! Then how can we
	expect to keep the thamizh maRai and other works alive for the next
	generation. Luckily the basic faith in GOD is still there among most
	of the people who would visit the tempples locally. If the temples
	are in proper condition with uthsavams, aaraadhanais properly
	performed, then it will, to some extent, keep these faiths alive.
	And this seems to be the direct way to do that. 

	There are many knowledgeable people in this group who would have
	visited many of the 107 dhivyadhEsams and could suggest the really
	needy temple(s). As dileepan has mentioned above, if we can find a
	proper person to manage, why dont we experiment. If our objective is
	to popularize aazhwaars' works and the dhivya dhEsams, this seems to
	be the first and direct step.

	Mr. Sampath Rengi had written abt this before. can u please continue
	the thread, sir? 

	Any comments / suggestions welcome. I have just written what most had
	in mind. Please pardon me if i had written anything wrong which is
	definitely not intended. I am making a short trip to India this 20
	Dec and will try to enquire to my best. 

	Thanks

	Vijay Triplicane.
	vijayt@acuson.com