Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) should take necessary steps to separately document the history, Vasthu dimensions, ritualistic tradition, etc, of all major temples in the State, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) State general secretary, Kummanam Rajashekharan, has said.
Mr. Rajashekharan was addressing the cultural meet held in connection with the annual festival at the centuries’ old Sreevallabha Temple in Thiruvalla on Saturday evening.
The VHP leader also released a historical book on Sreevallabha temple written by Manoj S. Nair, renowned Vasthu expert and consultant engineer at the State-run Vasthu Vidya Gurukulam at Aranmula, on the occasion.
He said Mr. Nair had given more importance to reasoning than devotion, in his historical book, ‘Thiruvallavaazhu’. The engineer-turned Vasthu scholar has taken much effort in exploring the genesis of the ancient Vishnu Temple that has been regarded as one among the 108 Tirupatis in the whole country, he said.
Receiving the first copy of the book, the TDB president, M.P. Govindan Nair, said the board has already started documentation of various major temples attached to it.
Addressing the function, Mr Manoj Nair stressed the need to provide in-service courses on proper upkeep of the ancient temple structures to the entire Devaswom staff.
Mr. Nair said the devotees too should be made properly aware of the importance of protecting the temple structure. According to him, the origin of the Sreevallabha temple must be around 6th century AD. The Azhwar writings in Tamil of the eighth and ninth century had mentioned about the temple and hence its origin might be a couple of centuries before that, he said.
K.R. Prathapachandra Varma, patron of the Hindu Vigilant Movement; Murali Krishnan, TDB chief engineer; Ganga Radhakrishnan, Usha Raju, municipal councillors; and Narendran Chembakavelil, Temple Advisory Committee secretary, also spoke. Gopakumar Munjanattu, TAC president, presided over the meeting.
The ritualistic Pallivetta as part of the annual temple festival was held on Sunday evening.
The Pallivetta procession was taken out to Govindankulangara and returned to the Sreevallabha temple in the evening.
The 10-day temple festival will come to a close with the ceremonial Aratt on Monday.
