Ranchi, June 24, 2013: With the innovative steps taken by the temple management, the devotees at Baidyanath Dham temple in Deoghar are to witness hassle-free ‘darshan’ this season. The Government has made slight changes in the ‘argha’ system of the temple so that more and more people could be accommodated for the purpose. A proposal for making ‘bhabhut’ from the belptra offered at the temple is also in the pipeline.

“To avoid any instance of stampede in the temple premises during the darshan, we have planned to make it convenient for the devotees of ensuring 100 per cent accessibility to all,” said Deputy Commissioner of Deoghar and Chief Executive Officer of Baba Baidyanath Temple Management Board Rahul Purvar.

According to Purvar, ‘argha’ will be offered at the door of the sanctum-sanctorum of the temple, making it possible for every devotee to have a glance of the ‘shivlinga’ positioned inside it. 

“The new ‘argha’ system has several benefits like – there will be minimum chances of stampede during the darshan. We can accommodate as many as 5,000 persons in an hour making it accessible to everyone to have ‘baba darshan’,” said Purvar. The devotees will pass on after offering ‘argha’ and ‘baba darshan’ without entering the sanctum sanctorum of the temple saving a lot of time.

“Moreover, one need not stand in a queue for ‘darshan’ as time slots will be allotted to each devotee who will be allowed to enter the temple premises accordingly,” said the DC.

The Government is also making arrangements to use hundreds of tonnes of ‘belpatra’ offered to lord Shiva by the devotees in making ‘bhabhut’ out of it by recycling. “The proposal initiated by the state tourism secretary Sajal Chakarverty is in an initial stage where the modalities are to be discussed in detail. It will take some more years to come on ground,” said the DC.

The Panda Dharmarakshini Sabha (PDS), an organisation of the priests in the temple however, are not much enthusiastic about the initiatives taken by the government as they feel that it will disturb the age old traditions of the ‘darshan’ without any interference from anybody.

“We will wait and watch this year…..we also want that more and more people come here for darshan. If it is in the public interest, it is fine but if it causes any disturbance in the traditional system of ‘darshan’, we will be forced to oppose it,” said Secretary of PDS Durlabh Mishra. 

But, recycling of ‘belpatra’ is not acceptable to them as they are opposed to converting temple into a market. “We cannot allow the temple management to make the temple premises into a market as we believe that nothing new could be made by destroying anything. ‘Bhabhut’ comes out of ‘yajna’ performed by us not by destroying the ‘belpatra’,” Mishra said.

Moreover, the Supreme Court judgement of 1964 by the Madras High Court says that no management can change the system any temple and every judgement is given on the basis of that afterwards. It is our fundamental right and they will have to follow the guidelines given by us,” added Mishra.

Source: The Pioneer, DT. June 24, 2013.