In an earlier hearing, the commission had expressed shock after it heard the Tantri or spiritual head of Kerala’s most high-profile Sabarimala temple, Kantararu Mohanaru, who also heads a panel to select priests, confessed he knew no Sanskrit, had no clue of the Vedas or its mantras and chants.

Incidentally, the late CPM ideologue E M S Namboothiripad had opposed the setting up of the Sri Sankaracharya Sanskrit University in Kalady, saying Sanskrit was a dead language, and such a university would only “aid and abet Hindu communalism.” He had said that Sankaracharya’s Advaita philosophy was outdated and caused India to remain backward.

But after he died in the 1990s, the Left government then in power set up a chair in Namboothiripad’s name in the same university.