QUORA QA-FORWARD Dear friends,
This is a QA I readyesterday in the Quora website. Being lengthy I did not add in QA. I thought offorwarding the same. Ithought of forwarding the same for the reason- A lot of historical facts aretold in the answer. Read the answer forhistorical details Gopalakrishnan22-11-2021 Q Why are Malayalees not much visitingTirupati when the whole of India is visiting the world famous, country’srichest and well organised temple? A Arun Mohan (അരുൺ മോഹൻ)A Liberal Malayaleeand Secular Indian Fri Well, There are indeedMalayalees visiting Tirupati temple. I have visited Tirupati few years back andis planning to visit probably next year etc. I have seen some fellow Malayaleesin Tirupati during my last visit. But when we look, the number of Malayalees visitingTirupati is very low. I don’t have statistics, but Irecollect an experience talking to a travel consultant during a conferenceabout developing Southern Pilgrim circuits (as I was representing a researchagency then who were studying on prospects of multiple pilgrim circuit). When we put ahypothesis of Kochi-Thanjavur-Tirupati-Srisailam package, the consultantimmediately replied - Its okay to have Thanjavur-Tirupati-Srisailam circuit,but extending to Kochi makes no sense without a base Malayalee pilgrim. Then hesaid, to understand it, its easy to look- How many direct buses/trains exist between Tirupati and anyplace in Kerala? Ernakulam-Tirupati distance is same asKottayam-Velankanni distance. But the latter has more than 7 daily buses andfew train options, while none exist for former. So that set thepremises of the question.Malayalees don’t visit in large numbers to Tirupati. Majority ofKeralites who visit Tirupati are basically Konkani/Tamil Brahmin community ofKerala, with very few ethnic Malayalees visiting. So the question Why are Malayalees not much visiting Tirupati when thewhole of India is visiting the world famous, country’s richest and wellorganised temple? https://www.quora.com/Why-are-Malayalees-not-much-visiting-Tirupati-when-the-whole-of-India-is-visiting-the-world-famous-country-s-richest-and-well-organised-temple Lack of effective historicalconnections Any pilgrimagedestination for a community, should have a historical connection for thatcommunity. Why Konkanis of Kerala visit Tirupati regularly? Because Konkanculture is heavily linked to Tirupati concepts. The Tirupati temples wereheavily patronized by Vijayanagara Empire and they have effectively pushed thelegends of Venkanteswara/Balaji among people of Deccan and the coasts. Tirupati is one ofthe few temples in South India, that have extensive patronage of most of thePan-South Indian royal dynasties starting from Pallavas, Cholas, Pandayas,Chalukyas, Vijayanagara and Kadambas making huge endowments and patronage tothis temple. Even Marathas also made huge endowments, thus effectively bringingthis temple popular among Marathas. Can you identify any Malayalee Kingdom or Chera Empire inthe above list? Throughout the history, Keralaroyals or any upper caste communities had no linkages or patronage withTirupati temple. So it remained an alien temple for people living to the otherside of Western ghats (can’t say the same for Konkanis, who had better accessvia Deccan) Without culturallinkages, its hard to connect even today. It is like asking an Assamese or Kashmiri Hindu tobelieve in legends of Ayyappa and visit Sabarimala when the entireconcept of Ayyappa is alien to them. Infact, a goodpercentage of Malayalees don’t even know the story of Tirupati Balaji. I saythis, because my aunt had a big piggy box where she kept on depositing 5 Rscoin on daily basis to take it to Tirupati. When one of our cousin came, theywere asking, why this tradition? My aunt said, its to help Balaji to clear his debts, which confused heras she hasn’t heard the legend at all. Many in Kerala are like thatonly. Its mostly the influence of Konkani/Tamil Brahmins, these legends startedgetting popularized in Kerala society. Still its very low 2. Lack of interest in Non-Tantric temples One thing, I alwaysnoted, Malayalee Hindus are not very keen in going for pilgrimage outsideKerala. We may visit temples in a place while visiting the area/town, butrarely go for a pilgrimage as such. I haven’t seen any pilgrimage concept amongMalayalees to visit places like Kashi or Dwaraka or any far away temples. If we are touringNorth India, chances are there to visit Kashi, rather than a specificpilgrimage as such. Whereas such pilgrimage do happen inside Kerala. We havepeople going for pilgrimage to Guruvayur or temples in Malabar or centralKerala etc. This is primarilybecause of underlying factor of extreme adherence to Tantric form of worship. Malayalee Hindupsyche is heavily tuned that temple worship must be Tantric in nature andnon-tantric temples aren’t much appreciated as a temple, rather just a holyplace. So when we visit temples in other parts of India, the level of bhaktivibes for Malayalees will be less and thereby we can’t connect to it. Due to nature of myjob earlier and my interest, I did a great number of temple tours in many partsof India. For me, its more my curiosity and understanding the local cultureetc. I too find bit hard to connect religiously to many temples outside Kerala,even if some are my favourites (like Somnath temple or Kedarnath orChidambaram). The massivedifferences of traditions matters a lot. When we say temples, we expectlot of rites and specific fire based poojas, but often majority of templesoutside Kerala are less rite intensive and more of Bhajan/congregationalactivities. When we visitedSomnath, few years back, we conducted an elaborate pooja hiring a pandit. Afterthe pooja, my Grandma was asking me- what was all about it, as it was we whodoing the pooja and Priest was chanting some generic mantras which doesn’tmake any sense to the context of doing pooja. While many ofpilgrims went high on Aarti time, most of us didn’t find anything big, as itwas just a bhajan. So this cultural difference matters a lot. Tirupati temple follows different Agamas all together andthereby it may not a great pull factor for Malayalees This is one keyfactor Malayalees don’t do much pilgrimage specific journeys outside Keralabarring 2 places (Kollur Mookambika and Palani Temple) which has its ownspecific historical reasons. 3. Presence of own Vaishnava culture Kerala is not shortof any Vaishnava worship centers. The whole state has so many Vishnu templesand each Vishnu temple has its own huge followers region wise. Kerala’s Bhakti movement revolvedaround the famous temple of Guruvayur and it became so iconic thatmajority of Malayalees consider as the most celebrated Vishnu temple just likehow Telugu see Tirupati. Guruvayurappan- oneof the most popular deities in Kerala, whose image is found everywhere in thestate As of the localtradition, there are 108 Vishnulayams or Great temples of Vishnu in Kerala. Out of these 108 Vishnulayams, 13temples are Divyadeshams (the Supreme Vishnu temples). WhereasAndhra Pradesh has only 2 Divyadeshams, out of which one is Tirupati temple. When Kerala itselfhas 13 huge historical Divyadesham Vishnu temples which has equal status thatof Tirupati, naturally there is no huge urge to go to Tirupati itself. Sree Padmanabhaswamy of Trivandrum, Navamukundan ofThirunavaya, one of the historic Vishnu temples in South India Thiruvalla Sreevallabha temple, one of the mostoldest surviving Vishnu temple in India, with its main shrine dated back to 59BC (as per date of inscription of the Chakra installed on the roof the temple).The Sree vallabha Vishnu is one of the most praised in Divyadesham epics The historic Aranmula temple believed to be constructedby Arjuna himself 4. Lack of associable myths Very often the urgeto visit a far away temple for pilgrimage, is most guided by some sort ofreligious superstitions or mythical beliefs of attaining something. For example, a visit toKashi/Ramaeswaram temple are associated with Moksha, a visit toChidambaram temple is associated with dance, a visit to Mookambika isassociated with blessings of wisdom/artistic growth, a visit to Sabarimala isassociated with attaining spiritual growth in life, a visit to Guruvayur isassociated with being in company of Krishna, a visit to Madurai temple isassociated with marriage/fertility, a visit to Palani temple is associated withprotection etc. Tirupati temple don’t have similar mythical beliefs togetting/attaining anything specific, other than general blessings.Generally the underlying desire of pilgrimage is mostly for having moreprosperity in life in form of blessings, thereby earn more in life. InTirupati’s case, the belief is that, we need to pay to the God to clear hisdebts. Its opposite of basic reason to visit a new pilgrimage place. Naturally thats adisincentive. Why should I visit a new far away pilgrimage where I need to paymoney to clear the deity’s debts? Thats not so interesting preposition to tryout, unless you are strong devotee. 5. Kerala has its own Thirumala concept This is somethingmany Non Malayalees dont’ know much. Cochin has itsown largest Konkani temple dedicated to Thiru Venkathachalapathy /Venkatheswaraknown as Cochin Thirumala Devasthanam Temple, also known as Goshripuram Balaji temple whichhas its own independent history/myth outside Tirupati The famous CochinThirumala Devasthanam temple in Mattancherry (Kochi Island) HistoricallyTirupati was one of the royal temples of Vijayanagara Empires and theseEmperors patronized the temple and its deity in a big way. That time, Tirupatiwas very small temple and its deity wasn’t that popular among Masses. One of theVijayanagar’s Emperor- Saluva Narasimha Deva Raya was an adherent devotee ofVenkatachalapaty and he regularly visited Tirupati temple every month. Due tosome accident or war, this tradition was broken inbetween and he couldn’t visitTirupati temple which made him depressed in a big way. That night, he got adivine vision of Lord appearing in front of him and said that he was pleasedwith devotion of the Emperor, so he himself will come to his Palace. Next daymorning, a sculptor came to his court and said that he can build the mostexquisite idol of Venkatachalapaty and went into the pooja room of the king tobuild one. He shut the room and months passed, no information about him.Impatiently, the king broke the pooja room, to see an idolof Venkatachalapathy along with Sreedevi and Bhoodevi in the room with no traceof the sculptor. Realizing it was a divine work, this Swayamboo idolwas worshiped at the imperial court of Hampi by all the Vijayanagara emperorsincluding Krishnadevaraya. The originalidols of Thirumala Venkathachalapaty with Sreedevi and Bhoodevi along withVijayanagara Salagram as worshipped in Cochin Thirumala Temple today After collapse ofthe Vijayanagara empire and ruining of Hampi, the wherabouts of this idol wasunknown, untill a Konkani seer- Vijendra Theertha of Kumbakonam Muttaccidentally discovered it. He placed the idol in a shrine near Mutt in today’sGoa region and lived there for sometime. However it was the time of Portugueseinquisition of Goa and Hindus of the region were persecuted by Portuguese. Thismade lot of Gowda Saraswata Brahmins in the region fleeing the place andVijendra Theertha also fled with this idol. He saw a vision of an Island calledGoshreepuram and understood that its somewhere in central part of Kerala. Heand his followers came to this island which was the-then Capital ofPerumpadappu Swaroopam (old name of Kochi Royal Dynasty) and the King grantedland for Vijendra Theertha and his followers to settle down in the GoshreepuramIsland (modern Mattancherry), close to his Palace. Some additional land wasallotted to build a temple for the idol too as Kochi Kings were adherent Vishnubelievers and they found the idol as Vishnu. With this, in 1599, Vijendra Theertha along with hisfollower commissioned a temple called Goshree Thirumala Temple. The King ofKochi himself came to pray at this temple, thereby itwas granted with status equal to Royal temple (Mahakshetram, but not officiallya Kshetram in that time, as they weren’t following Tantric law), which gave alegal cover to the temple from any Portuguese atrocities (as Portuguese willnot attack Royal temples of their ally- Cochin Kings) However, thistemple was destroyed by Portuguese in 1662 (as Portuguese felt that the mainpriest of the temple was a spy to invading Dutch forces of Ceylon; in realitythe priest was secret agent of Kochi Queen in having a deal with Dutch toinvade Kochi as to overthrow Portuguese who was Cochin’s official ally then).The priest and few elders escaped with the idol on the previous night of attackto Udayamperoor region which was beyond direct influence of Portuguese. In thatvillage, they took pledge to divide themselves to establish 16 Konkani villagesin the region and rotate the idol between the village to avoid Portugueseattacking one common place. As a result, 16 villages, all bearing the title ofTirumala came in Central Kerala. However in 1663, Portuguese was defeated byDutch and Dutch India was established. Dutch were least concerned aboutreligion and they welcomed back Konkanis to Kochi (as Konkanis were goodtraders which Dutch liked the most) A new Dutchfunded temple came up in Kochi by mid 1700s and Konkanis prospered heavilyaround this temple, making it famous However, thispeaceful period didn’t last long, as Kochi got its new powerful King- SakthanThampuran who didn’t like Konkani-Dutch business influence over economy of Kochiislands. He ordered Konkanis to invest in his new capital- Thrissur, butKonkani leaders refused as they felt comfortable to be near to Dutch enclave ofFort Kochi (in Mattancherry). This was seen as insult to Kochi King, so Sakthan Thampuran ordered CochinRoyal Army to invade Mattancherry and destroy Thirumala temple aswell as plunder Konkani homes. A huge army of Kochi reached Kochi isles anddestroyed the main temple and looted the entire wealth stored in the temple(approx 1.6 Lakh of Golden Fanams, the imperial currency) which was taken toThrissur. The leaders of this community appealed Dutch assistance, howeverDutch government rejected citing as internal matter of Kochi Kingdom. With noother alternative, the community escaped to Alleppey along with the idol of Venkathachalapaty from theruined temple. Alleppey was part of Travancore Kingdom and the Prime Ministerof Travancore- Raja Keshavadas was building a new city (Alappuzha)to push Travancore’s mercantile interests. These desperate Konkanis soughtassistance of Dharma Raja Karthika Thirunal- Maharaja of Travancore, whoordered to grant a space in Alappuzha town, near to the Grand Canal whichKeshavadas commissioned. Thus they settled there, forming the new Tirumala Temple at Alleppey. Alappuzha ThirumalaDevasthanam Temple Howeverin 1801, Sakthan Thampuran (who was old by then) felt sorry for what he donewith Konkani community as well as destruction of their Vishnutemple. He decided to apologize and settle the matter by sending emissaries to Alleppey as partof bringing them back to Kochi. Though initially, they refused, the extremepersuasion of the Crown Prince Kerala Varma, finally made Konkanis tomove back to Kochi in 1805 AD and later Cochin Government funded a huge templecalled Cochin Thirumala Devasthanam (as a token of repatriation of the moneylooted by Cochin Royal Army) and the idol of Venkachalapathy was brought back to Kochi in grandestmanner in typical Konkani style called Brahmasolavam on goldenchariot and consecrated in the new temple. The impact ofrotation of the idol in 1660s and shifting to Alleppey in 1790 created a newculture- Multiple Thirumala temples in Central Kerala. Where-ever theoriginal idol has gone, a regular temple called Thirumal Devasthanam came up. With passage of Kochi Devaswom Law in 1820s, all thesemultiple Thirumala temples to be brought under one single management calledCochin Thirumala Devasthanam Devaswom or TD Devaswom which wasunique as both Royal Governments of Kochi and Travancore didn’t see it asKerala temples, so allowed CTD Devaswom to function as a private Devaswom withstate scrutiny, thereby exempting it from Crown control. So even today, CTD Devaswom remains the only mainstreamDevaswom board outside Kerala Govt control (though TDDevaswom reports to High Court’s Devaswom Bench) The presence of CTDDevaswom temples means, we have our own version of Venkatachalapathy, outsideTirupati beliefs. Historically Konkanis living in Kerala worshipped these CTDtemples only. It was mostly after intense marketing of Tirupati Temple in 70sand 80s, many among started visiting Tirupati temple seeing it as Moolasthanamof their temple. Even today, the Thirumala temple in Kochi has moreprominence among GSB community more than Tirupati. So the ritualsand traditions are identical. As GSB community is a very rich entrepreneurialcommunity, they kept on building more Thirumala temples inside Kerala. A secondThirumala Devasthanam temple is constructed inside Kochi in MG Road as well asanother in Tripunithura. So most of Konkanisand non Malayalee communities keep on worshipping these temples as main temple.So the urge to rush to Tirupati is lower, as they often say, they have an equaltemple in Kochi. And the original temple of Cochin Thirumala Devasthanamis officially declared as Mahakshetram or Grand Temple by erstwhile TantraSabha -the Tantric council (later officially recognized byKerala Government in 1970s), the only Non Tantric temple to have such anofficial status in Kerala. Such a status means, many Malayalees also recognizeit akin to their temple concept, even though the pooja system is different,something with Tirupati temple doesn’t have. Brahmotsavam ofGoshripuraesha, another name for Cochin Venkateswara. This festival is to remindthe grand arrival of Venkatheswara back to Kochi from Alleppey in its newcurrent temple. The famous SreeLakshmi Venkatha Kalyanam tradition held at Cochin Thirumala temple, whichattract lakhs of devotees across Kerala Due to all these reasons, Malayalees don’t find muchvalue to visit Tirupati. For me, going to our Thirumalatemple is more better than travelling to Tirupati, as the concept is same. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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