Priest Carries Dalit On Shoulders As Part Of Ritual

The Temples Protection Movement (TPM), along with the Samajika Samarasatha Vedika, the Narasimha Vahini and other organizations, conducted the Munivahana Utsavam at the Sri Lakshmi Ranganatha Swamy temple (Ranganayakula Gutta) on the outskirts of Hyderabad today.

Beginning with garlanding of a Gandhi statue, a big Sobha yatra was held with nadaswarams playing and kolatam by hundreds of women on both the sides of the street.

Krishna Chaitanya, an archaka (priest) from the Bhadrachalam Narasimha Swamy temple, lifted Ravi, a harijan, who sported a Vaishnava namam as a depiction of the revered Tiruppanalwar.

TPM convenor and Chilkur Balaji temple head priest C S Rangarajan officiated the event which saw the archaka carry the dalit devotee on his shoulders from outside the temple up to the dhwajasthambam.

This is seen as a celebration of the ideals and teachings of Bhagawad Ramanuja, a Vaishnava acharya, who stood in his time for a non-discriminatory and egalitarian society.

The event was carried out in April 2018 for the first time after 2,700 years in Hyderabad, where Rangarajan carried a dalit devotee Aditya Parasri into the Ranganatha Swamy temple in Jiyaguda amid fanfare.