Phalgun Krushna Panchami
Tirupati: In a novel initiative, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) has launched a crash course for temple priests to help them hone their skills in performing the temple rituals.
The five-day training programme is being executed by TTD’s Sri Venkateswara Employees Training Academy (SVETA) is a bold attempt to make the priests to ward off the modern-day professional hazards such as stress. Besides, it teaches the priests how to keep themselves physically fit and inculcate a sense of social responsibility in their work. The intensive training includes the corporate style thought-provoking lectures and Powerpoint presentation on personality development, maintaining mental and physical peace and adopting healthy lifestyles by a team of experts comprising physicians and personality development trainers.
Talking to this website’s newspaper, SVETA director Bhuman said the TTD had launched the programme to improve the self esteem of priests who occupy a unique place in the temples.
Apart from offering training in conducting temple rituals in capsule form, the training will also focus on temporal aspects which are bound to influence the priests in day-to-day temple activities.
Another salient feature of the course is that the senior Aagama pundits requisitioned from outside, stay with the trainees for five days, giving them an opportunity to discuss matters related to temple rituals and clear their doubts.
Under a programme launched in June 2007, 300 priests from various districts, were trained in 14 batches, including 13 in Vaikhanasa Agama and the one in Pancharatra system of temple worship. Plans were afoot for covering the priests from the other southern states, he explained.
Coordinator Vedantam Vishnu Bhattacharya said the TTD would provide the study materials covering not only daily rituals but also those performed on special occasions like festivals.
During the practical session, the trainees would perform the rituals to the accompaniment of the ‘mantras’ before the model of a shrine in the presence of senior pandits well-versed in theory and practice, he said.
A trainee, Tumati Ramacharlu, who is the hereditary priest of Mattapalli temple in Nalgonda district, after the sudden death of his father six months ago, said that the short-term training was very helpful.
‘The TTD’s initiative is a boon for people like me as there is no institute offering such authoritative short-term course to refurbish our skills,’ he added.
Source: www.newindpress.com
Also See
» Save Temples
» Learn Hinduism
