The Free Prasadam Scheme in Temples of Tamilnadu

Friends,

A few days before my retirement on 21st September as Member, Central Administrative Tribunal, I did a wonderful thing. I took a week’s leave and went back to Madurai, Rameswaram, Dindigul and Palani in Tamilnadu, places where I had served in the early days of my career. After visiting the temples at Madurai and Rameswaram, I went to Dindigul and met the young and dynamic Collector Vinay,  his charming wife who is an IRS officer, and their playful son over lunch at the same bungalow we had lived in thirty years back. As we discussed places like Guziliamparai or Kodaikanal and schemes like Mid-Day Meals or Manu Nidhi Thittam, my mind went back to those heady days when serving the people was a passion and visiting every single village of the district in the first three months of posting was a challenge among the batchmates! I remembered the pilgrimage I had done in January of 1988 and 1989 by walking barefoot for sixty kilometers from Dindigul to Palani Dhandayuthapani temple, meeting scores of people on the way and watching with awe a small group of four at Dindigul swelling to about hundred by the time we reached Palani!

There is a dam site about 11 kilometers from the temple town of Palani where I had spent many solitary evenings in 1981 reading books and listening to lilting music and melodies, filling the heart with joy and melancholy. I went there and spent some nostalgic moments remembering the extensive walking in the lush green paddy fields just after sunrise while the Surveyor used to measure the land so that the Village Officer can reconcile it with the FMB (Field Measurement Book). 

Coming back to Palani I got a room opened in the temple guest house where I had stayed a number of times as District Collector. In that room I looked for a particular image of the God etched on the wall which used to hold me in fascinated awe. It is no longer there on the wall, but it still remains etched in my mind forever. May be I was looking for it in a futile attempt to merge the eternal with the ephemeral. But it did resonate a spirit of continuity and it immortalized the thread of life running till we reach the point of no return. The evening was spent with Arulraj, the young and brilliant Sub-Collector of Palani who enthralled me with narration of his experience and his perspective of life. In his talk and manners I tried to see my young self and succeeded to some extent finding the same idealism, enthusiasm and patriotic fervour of my Sub-Collector days.

On the morning of 5th September I visited the Dhanadyuthapani temple on the hilltop at Palani. After a soul-stirring darshan of the benign Lord, I was prompted by the temple official accompanying me to take the Prasadam being offered at the dining hall. I was curious and sat down for the prasadam at around nine thirty in the morning. Then came my moment of absolute amazement which kept growing when I enjoyed the superb quality of the prasadam in the form of a full-fledged hot meal of rice, sambhar, rasam, two sabzis, curd, achar, papad and a tumbler full of exquisite payasam. I have no hesitation in saying that it was one of the best meals I have ever had.

The manager in charge of the dining arrangements explained to me that under a Government of Tamilnadu Scheme, the prasadam is being offered to around 4000 pilgrims every day free of cost (yes, not a paisa charged for that fantastic food) all the 365 days of the year. On festival days the number goes up to even 8000! The distribution of the Prasadam starts at eight in the morning and goes up to nine in the night without any break. Looking at the neat and clean dining hall with 4000 banana leaves stacked in a rack I marveled at the stupendous efforts that go into maintaining the quality of the prasadam and the hygienic standard of the place! The cost of the scheme is borne by the temple from its income, but there are also donors who bear one day’s cost, one week’s cost or even one month’s cost. An industrialist from Coimbatore donates one crore rupees every year for the scheme!

I was told that there are many temples in Tamilnadu where Prasadam is offered free of cost to the visiting pilgrims every day of the year by the temple administration. These temples are managed – quite efficiently – by the Hindu Religious Endowment Department of the Government. I was also told by a gentleman sitting by my side at the dining place that in his native state of Karnataka a similar scheme of offering free prasadam is being run effectively.

I am truly amazed by the concept of the scheme and also by its successful implementation.  Most temples in India earn astronomical sums of money from the offerings of the devotees, yet only a few temples return to the pilgrims a modicum of kindness and courtesy by way of free prasadm. Only the langars in Gurudwaras are known for offering free prasadam to the visitors.

I am reminded of a touching story I had received in my WhatsApp group about a langar and the kindness shown to some hungry souls there. I am putting the story in “Today’s Nuggets” section. Let us hope more and more temples and other religious institutions in India will pick up the practice of free prasadams to all their visitors every day and add to the divine and serene experience of the pilgrims.