Not the UGC’s business

IF the chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC), Hari Gautam, has his way, many universities in the country will soon have graduate and postgraduate-level courses in purohitya (priesthood).

He says, ‘‘There are so many NRIs who crave for pandits to perform their rituals. As there are many ignorant persons masquerading as priests, a certified course would lend it credibility.’’ The intentions are noble but, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The project, which comes in the wake of the UGC’s grandiose plan to introduce courses in Vedic astrology, is skewed and outside the purview of universities.

At the root of the problem is the wrong perception the UGC has about priests. The ability to recite mantras in a rapid-fire manner is only one aspect of priestly training. While the universities may be able to impart such an ability, test a person on it and give a certificate of his passing/failing the test, it will not make him a priest. Far more important for a priest is devotion, priestly inclination, and, above all, faith which moves mountains. And who can deny that in the case of Hindus, the nobility of birth is also of paramount importance? These are some of the factors which cannot be taken care of by universities which are run on a secular basis.

It isn’t that attempts have not been made to produce priests outside of the rigid caste system. In Kerala, inspired by egalitarian ideas, an attempt was made in the past to produce priests belonging to the Scheduled Castes. The state saw to it that they were given training in priestly duties and that they knew all the requisite ‘mantras’. After the training, they were all posted in temples under the control of the Devaswom Board but the government had not foreseen that caste-conscious devotees would boycott temples serviced by SC priests. Soon enough many of these priests got disillusioned and gave up their jobs or were accommodated as clerks.

In Bihar, at the height of his popularity, Laloo Yadav attempted a similar social revolution when he got a few Scheduled Castes anointed as priests. That was the time when, as one of his biographers put it, ‘‘he stood belligerently opposed to all that was Brahminical, all rank and ritual, all ostentation and superstitions.’’ But as he got mired in the fodder scam and turned superstitious, nothing is heard about those priests. If anything, it shows how hare-brained schemes can end up. In contrast, Mata Amritanandamai has in her temples proved that caste is not an inhibiting factor for anyone with an aptitude and necessary training for priestly functions. The kind of devotion and following that she gets is proof of her ability to penetrate the caste barriers of Hinduism. The reason why she has succeeded where the other two experiments failed is because her actions have the sanction of the community to which she belongs.

Priests have been in this country since the Rg Vedic period and, needless to say, without certificates from the UGC. That is how Hinduism has flourished for thousands of years. Tradition has a lot more to do with priesthood than education. Given the various traditions prevalent in Hinduism, it is indeed difficult to standardise priestly vocation. I have seen in some of the great temples of North India, worshippers entering the sanctum sanctorum and pour over the idols milk, ghee, Gangajal and other offerings while, in the south, they are kept at a distance. There is little in common between the practices of the priests in these two traditions. It’s not just a question of geographical difference as the rituals vary from temple to temple. It shows how difficult it is to standardise a course in purohitya.

Indians have been travelling within and without the subcontinent for hundreds of years and wherever they have settled, they have built temples and have managed to procure priestly services, either indigenously or by importing priests from India. Well-known writer, V.S. Naipaul, writes in his book, India: A Million Mutinies Now: ‘‘There had been so many pujas in my grandmother’s family in Trinidad when I was a child, so many ritual readings from the scriptures and the epics.’’ That is how he got his introduction to the faith of his forefathers. He also narrates the story of the ‘‘Electric Pujari’’ in Mumbai, who had a flourishing business exporting cassettes containing the verses connected with the pujas mainly to the Gulf countries. He was so rich that he could afford to have long vacations in the US with his family. If anything, it shows the needs of the priestly market the world over are met by enterprising priests without any state intervention.

There are institutions like, for instance, the one headed by the Shankaracharya of Kanchi, which train priests. But his attempt to set up a ‘ved padsala’ at Mahishi in Saharasa district in Bihar, where the great savant Mandan Mishra had an intellectual duel with Adi Sankara, did not evoke a good response, as I learnt when I visited the village less than a year after its inception. Wild grass grew around the school, making it difficult to approach the premises. But, on a recent visit, I found many Satras in Majauli, the world’s largest riverine island in Assam, thriving. Hundreds of people are being trained in priestly duties in these Satras, which trace their origin to Vaishnava reformer Shankar Deva.

The point is, it is not the job of the state or state-run universities to produce priests. Such priests will simply not carry conviction with the faithful. Among the major religions of the world, it is, perhaps, Christianity which has the most established form of training of priests. However, the system of imparting theological and priestly training to Christian priests is relatively new. Though they have been in India since the first century, it was only in 1541 that the first seminary run by the Fransciscans was set up at Cranganore in 1541. It took another 273 years for the first indigenous Orthodox theological seminary to come up in Kottayam.

Today, the Syrian and Protestant Christians have their own university at Serampore, near Calcutta, to which are affiliated their seminaries where education in theology or divinity is imparted. The Catholics have their own seminaries, many of which are affiliated to the church’s own universities, like the Gregorian University in Rome. Nonetheless, a person does not become a priest merely by getting a B.Th or BD. In fact, every church has its own system to recruit priests from within its community.

While priesthood is an alien concept for the Muslims, they have their own seminaries which meet the religious needs of the faithful. The Buddhists have their own monasteries, where monks are initiated at a very young age. In any case, no religion has felt the need for the UGC to introduce courses in priesthood.

As regards the plea that there is a great demand for priests outside the country, there are many other vocations which, too, require hands but that does not mean the UGC should introduce courses in them. It should leave religion to the religionists and concentrate on education.

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