From: raman@cs.utexas.edu (Raman Rajagopalan)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil
Subject: Rich priests - NOT in present day TN!
Date: 27 Aug 1992 16:05:38 -0500
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: bathtub.cs.utexas.edu

In article <2A9C3289.24032@orion.oac.uci.edu> sundar@indigo1.hsis.uci.edu (M. Sundaramoorthy) writes:
>In article <BtLLLq.5J8@ireq.hydro.qc.ca> srini@ireq-num.hydro.qc.ca (K.Srinivasan) writes:
>>sundar@indigo1.hsis.uci.edu (M. Sundaramoorthy) writes:
>
>	(Aside: Still the temple priests and prohits who perform rituals are
>	well paid and respected by the common folks than many other low caste
>	people who are still involved in traditional professions. Their
>	economic progress (may be a section, though), may be judged by the
>	TVS-50 ad. with a 'gurukkaL' riding the moped and a caption:
>	'paNditharkaL munnERiya kaalam').
>		

You have got to be kidding... you are claiming that a group must
be wealthy because of a TV ad????

Anyway, I visited India this summer and actually spoke to priests in
several temples, from as far south as tirunelveli to kanchipuram in
the north.

Priests whose jobs are NOT hereditary get a monthly salary of Rs. 300.
Priests whose jobs ARE hereditary get one "padi" of rice per day as salary -
at least in the ekambareshwarar (siva) temple in kanchipuram!
In addition, priests may keep whatever pilgrims leave on their plates.

In a temple close of tirunelveli, the priest's salary was rs.300, and
the watchman's salary was rs.225.  seems hardly worth it considering
that priests study for *years* while nightwatchman need only be alert
at night!  This was a small Shasta temple near Gopalasamudram village.

While priests' families *may* be able to eat on the "tips", I doubt
there is going to much left over for mopeds and such.  Think especially
about the smaller temples or even not-so-famous large temples -- 
there are not very many people who visit these temples, and hence it
follows that those priests are likely to be extremely poor.

Also, be aware that systematic faulty accounting and sale of temple
lands at cut-rate prices has left many temples unable to buy supplies
even for daily poojas, much less maintenance of the structures themselves.

In kanchi, for example, apparently 2 crores (market value) of a temple's
lands were sold off and the temple gained only 2 lakhs from the sale.
Rather than public auction, the lands were apparently divided into 
plots and the plots were bought up by individuals favored by the
government at cut-rate prices.  This was at a Siva temple (near the
Kamakshi temple) well over a thousand years old -- the ceiling was leaking 
water, and if the funds continue to be diverted as they are, there may not 
be a temple there in 50 years or so!  

The way the faulty accounting works is as follows: the actual hundi
collections are entered properly in the books.  then, the govt.
appointed temple management "buys" things with the money for the temple,
to pay electric and other bills, and to pay salaries.
Unfortunately, the temple does not always see the things that were
bought for it, or things end up costing temples what screws and bolts
cost the US military!

Instead, the monies are used by the "temple committees"
to line member's pockets: for example, temple funds were used at
one point for buying patrol for a visiting motorcade (but not
entered as such in the books).  The monies legally allocated for petrol 
could then be pocketed by individuals. Net loss for the temple, net gain 
for some individuals associated with the ruling party (this incident 
happened while the DMK was in power).

In fact, the advice I was given by a priest on the best way to
help a temple these days is *not* to put money in hundis,
but rather to do some service yourself - perhaps set up
an account with a store to deliver flowers to the temples on a daily
basis, etc.  Money in hundis is apparently eaten by corrupt
politicians at a rate of well over 60%.

>
>M. Sundaramoorthy
>sundar@indigo1.hsis.uci.edu
>sundar@esv1.hsis.uci.edu  


- Raman Rajagopalan