Sri Mallikarjuna Swamy temple
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Supertitions and dogmas
The Times of India, July 24, 2011
Women don’t visit Mallikarjuna Swamy temple inside Dimbam forest on the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border either. Belief has it that any woman coming here will die and be turned to rock. Is there a rock here? Yes, 100m from the temple.
It all began when Mallikarjuna Swamy, a Lingayat monk, came to Kongandi Hill close by. He wanted to do penance and forbade any woman from coming close. One disobeyed and had to pay the price for it. Since then, says Doreswamy, a devotee, no woman has dared to visit this temple. Though the seer of Chitradurga mutt, Sri Murugarajnedra Sharanaru, led some women there in 1993, it didn’t have the desired results and women continued to give the temple a miss. Savitha, a school girl who accompanied the seer, assures that this superstition is unfounded. Naturally. She’s proof of it.
Rationalists debunk superstitions, saying they are formed either through a cultural process or deliberately generated by vested interests. Sanal Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalist Association, says a study done by Trinity College found that 30% of any given population has a tendency to accept matters of faith blindly. “In India, it’s 31%, in the US, 37%,” he says. “In societies where there is uncertainty, either political or economic, people look for security in superstitions.” While some are promoted by religious leaders, why people believe them has nothing to do with faith, he asserts.
Rev Fr M C Paulose of Delhi’s St Mary’s Orthodox Church says, “Superstition is based on non-realistic thinking. One doesn’t need to go to a particular place of worship for prayers to be fulfilled. Real faith can make things happen in any place of worship.”
In Tamil Nadu, even rationalist Dravidian politicians have come under the sway of superstitions. They believe that visiting Brihadeshwara Temple in Thanjavur will bring bad luck. In 1984, prime minister Indira Gandhi and chief minister M G Ramachandran went to the temple to unveil a statue of Raja Raja Chola. While the PM was assassinated that year, MGR swooned outside the temple and suffered a stroke. In 2010, when the 1000th anniversary of the temple was celebrated, CM M Karunanidhi, a rationalist, came to witness a dance programme but he came in through a side entrance. An official of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Board, which manages the temple, says, “Getting a politician or an official to inaugurate a programme in the temple is very difficult.” The search for peace draws people to dargahs too. The one at Erwadi, a village in Ramanathapuram district, is believed to cure mentally-ill patients. But in 2001, more than 25 were charred to death in a fire near the dargah. It hardly mattered. The patients just keep pouring in.
