Today, if he is remembered at all, it is only by some vagrant savage in the depths of the Mexican forest… Speaking of Huitzilopochtli recalls his brother, Tezcatilpoca. “And what of Huitzilopochtli? In one year-and it is no more than five hundred years ago-50,000 youths and maidens were slain in sacrifice to him. But where in all the world is there a man who worships Jupiter today? Mencken continues: “There was a day when Jupiter was the king of the gods, and any man who doubted his puissance was ipso facto a barbarian and an ignoramus. “Where is the graveyard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds?" He begins his essay, Memorial Service, with this rifle shot: Here we must defer to the finest writer on the subject, my hero the autodidact H.L. Ultimately, it is our belief that makes and unmakes the gods, not our texts. What does the Dwarka seer (this is a Greek term referring to oracles, why do we use it for a scholar?) think about this? No mention of her in the Shastras or Vedas either. Mumbai’s famous Sitladevi Temple Road in Mahim probably refers to a goddess who prevents or cures smallpox. In India many village deities tend to have animist origins and are later incorporated into the faith. The sacred Vedas also speak of Varuna and Indra and the Ashwins, but in which temple are they worshipped today? And no Veda makes any reference at all to Shri Ram and Shri Krishna either, but that does not make them unworthy of worship.
One is not qualified to engage the learned Shankaracharyas, of whom we have many, all with appropriately grand names, on the question of what is and what isn’t adharma (to say nothing of what is and what isn’t Hinduism).īut it must be pointed out that it is only those gods who are worshipped who are relevant in religion. Sai Baba was a Muslim faqir who cannot be compared to Hindu deities or worshipped like them." “They may burn my effigy or even send me to jail, but my campaign to protect the sanctity of the Hindu religion will continue.
Muslims don’t revere Sai Baba as much as Hindus do, who seem unaware of the ‘adharma’ they commit by worshipping him. He should not be worshipped with Hindu gods.
What indeed? In a nation where temples have been built to actresses, cricketers and languages, what could happen? I suspect nothing.īut the report had his holiness saying that such worship should stop forthwith because: “Hinduism is governed by Shastra and Vedas and there is no mention of Sai Baba. What if they were installed in our temples?" the Shankaracharya asked, according to a report in The Times Of India. “Statues of Sai Baba are being installed in homes. It says something remarkably warm and praiseworthy about us as a people that such a man should be elevated.Īnyway, this worship of Sai has offended one of the grandees of the faith, the 90-year-old Shankaracharya of Dwarka, Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati. A latter-day saint, who died in the 20th century, and is holy because he taught the eternal truths of love and forgiveness and coined the magnificent line: Sab ka malik ek (one God governs all). Sai is a man of unknown religious provenance.