Cabinet Minister Agrees on Alternative Proposal
Śrīmān Sachinandan prabhu flew to Delhi to meet Śrīmān Narayana Baba who is on first name speaking terms with many senior officials and ministers in Delhi and very influential in these matters.They met many ministers and finally met a senior Cabinet Minister and had very serious discussions with him about the Śrī Śrī Kṛṣṇa Balarāma Temple project and the NHAI’s demolishion of the front gate and walls, the prasadam shop, the book shop, the reception centre and the destruction of the spiritual monument of Śrīla Prabhupāda where he stayed for 17 days in 1977.
The Three Proposals
There were three proposals on the NHAI’s table for the Śrī Śrī Kṛṣṇa Balarāma Temple project:
- 1. The original plan was to put an underground electric power main line through our temple grounds to go where Śrīla Prabhupāda’s bhajan-kutir was [now demolished] and then to go under the fountain which means they would have had to dig up [demolish] the fountain where the yearly boat festival is observed.
- 2. They also had planned to put a big drainage line, underground, in between the lotus temple and Śrīla Gurudevas samadhi. [There was also talk of once that was done then they would put a service road there, in between the lotus temple and Śrīla Gurudevs samadhi.]
- 3. Then next they had planned to break up to three stairs of the temple [reason as yet unknown].
Cabinet Minister Agrees on Alternative Proposal
After extensive talks with the Cabinet Minister he had agreed on an alternative proposal and he sent in writing these new proposals to the Orissa [Odisha] main roads authority in Bhubaneswar. The Cabinet Minister then advised Sachinandan prabhu to go back to Bhubaneswar and speak with the roads authority in Bhubaneswar so as the new proposals could take place.
Sachinandan Prabhu is Meeting NHAI
The new plan as proposed by Sachinandan prabhu and the Cabinet Minister in New Delhi is to have all works diverted around the main temple area and Sachinandan prabhu is asking for 20 feet so as to re-build Śrīla Prabhupāda’s bhajan-kutir and repair the damage that is already done. Sachinandan prabhu is meeting with the Orissa [Odisha] NHAI (National Highways Authority of India) in Bhubaneswar today.
Pray for a Favourable Outcome
It has been suggested to have a 24 hour kirtan and let us all pray so that this all may have a favourable outcome.
Many thanks to Śrīmān Narayana Baba and Śrīmān Sachinandan prabhu for their concern, time and effort.
Sent in by Jagadish Pandit dasa
Please sign the petition…
Sinister goings on, but as always it is the most sincere who are the ones that fix the problem. In this case Sripad Sacinandan Prabhu is our hero of the hour.
So why then are we expected to have any faith in the plan that,
“…in the future, only those devotees designated by the Bureau to handle the issues in Bhubhaneshwar, as part of the Legal Committee, be involved in similar situations. Any intervention by any of the local devotees will merely complicate the issue.We seek your support in ensuring this for all future instances.
The Bureau should now direct the Bhubhaneshwar Temple authority to not act independently but in cooperation with the Legal Committee for all issues including this and in the future.”
~Vrajendranandan Das
Director- ISKCON Communications India
New Delhi
When it was they that failed to prevent this disaster from happening in the first place, while it was still completely avoidable? And they whom where reluctant to step in until after Sriman Sachinandanji had already averted any further disaster.
Yet from what I’m hearing they now want to claim all the credit!!!
More of the same old, same old.
Anyway, it is always simple for the simple @ <3
Jaya Srila Gour Govinda Swami !
Samadhi Lila Ki Jaya!
Jaya Gaura-Gadadhara! Jaya Gadadhara Nitya Parikara!
Hare Krishna Maharajas and Prabhus
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Today we met the Secretary to the Minister of Transport and Highways in Delhi.I myself and HG Vanamali Prabhu, apprised him of the situation and among the three proposals received by them for resolving the situation, the one sent by the Project Director- National Highways Bhubhaneshwar was found acceptable.
This new proposal was to restore the Prabhupada Bhajan Kutir at Bhubhaneshwar and a letter directing the concerned authority has been sent from the Minister’s Office and we have been assured that this will be implemented.
HH Gopal Krishna Goswami Maharaja also expressed his gratitude and offered his blessings to the Secretary over the phone.
We have succeeded in saving the Bhajan Kutir and will shortly work on restoring the same!
This is a significant development and a great news for all of us in service of Srila Prabhupada.
There was however a difficult situation posed by some devotees from Bhubhaneshwar who directly approached the Minsiter’s Office and they were very upset with this, to the extent that they advised us to set our house in order. However, by the intervention and blessings of Srila Gopal Krishna Goswami Maharaja, this situation was salvaged.
We feel strongly that in the future, only those devotees designated by the Bureau to handle the issues in Bhubhaneshwar, as part of the Legal Committee, be involved in similar situations. Any intervention by any of the local devotees will merely complicate the issue.We seek your support in ensuring this for all future instances.
The Bureau should now direct the Bhubhaneshwar Temple authority to not act independently but in cooperation with the Legal Committee for all issues including this and in the future.
Many thanks.
Your servant
Vrajendranandan Das
Director- ISKCON Communications India
New Delhi
The link and comment below was emailed to us by Rasamanjari devi dasi:
Not an isolated incident, be wary
http://www.thehindu.com/arts/history-and-culture/article3283627.ece
What a shame that India has lost interest in their treasures of mankind.
The NHAI’s plan to widen the Vikkiravandi –Thanjavur National Highway 45C will destroy a 1,300-year-old Siva temple.
A 1,300-year old Siva temple, celebrated in the verses of Saivite saint Tirugnana Sambandar and boasting of inscriptions belonging to the Chola kings, is facing demolition by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). The Tirupuravar Panankateesvarar temple is situated in Panaiyapuram village, two km from Vikkiravandi in Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu. The Pennaiyar flows near Panaiyapuram. The temple is also called Paravaipuram.
The NHAI, which is widening the Vikkiravandi –Thanjavur National Highway 45C, over a distance of about 160 km, has painted big arrow marks in white on the compound wall of the temple and inside its premises, where the widened road will cut through.
The NHAI has placed stones outside the temple to signify the portions that will be lost to the highway’s widening. If this plan goes through, the temple’s sanctum sanctorum for Panankateesvarar, the adjacent shrine for the goddess Satyambikai and much of the temple premises including other shrines, will be demolished. This has shocked and angered about 4,000 Panaiyapuram villagers and residents of Pappanapattu, Mundiyambakkam, Kappiyampuliyur and Thuravi villages. They met the Villupuram District Collector, V. Sampath, and submitted a petitionto him.
STRONG STAND
R.P. Pugazhendhi, former president of the Panaiyapuram panchayat, said: “We are spending sleepless nights. Almost the entire temple including the sanctum, the shrines for goddess Satyambikai, Ganesa and Muruga will be demolished. Only the flag-post and the shrine for Saneesvarar will remain. There is enough land on the west of the temple for the broadened highway to go through or a new alignment can be given from the National Highway 45. We will not allow even a single stone from the temple to be removed.”
R. Nagaswamy, former Director, Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department, said that the 1,300-year old temple was visited by the Tamil Savite saint Tirugnana Sambandar, who lived in the seventh century CE, and had sung verses celebrating the deity, a Sivalinga. The Sivalinga is called Panankateesvarar because the area abounds with palmyra trees.
The temple has a number of inscriptions belonging to Rajendra Chola I (regnal years 1012 CE to 1043 CE), his son, Rajendra Chola II, Adhi Rajendra, Kulotunga I, Jatavarman Sundara Pandya I and Vikrama Pandya among others.
Rajendra Chola’s inscription called the deity Nethrodharaka Swami (meaning, the main deity will cure eye ailments). The inscription recorded the gift of land and money for worship and making offerings in the temple. It spoke about Rajendra Chola’s conquest of Kadaram. (The present-day Kedda in Malaysia was called Kadaram and it belonged to Sri Vijaya kingdom). It revealed that the Chola emperor rebuilt the main temple between 1025 CE and 1040 CE, pointed out Dr. Nagaswamy.
“Another important aspect of the village is that it is also named Paravaipuram,” he said. Paravai was the consort of Tamil Saivite saint Sundarar, who lived in the eighth century CE. Paravai belonged to a family of dancing girls and she is worshipped even today, along with Sundarar, in Siva temples. Rajendra Chola I also had a personal assistant called Paravai, who was an ‘anukki.’ This Paravai was named after Sundarar’s consort. (Female personal assistants, who were trusted by the kings, were called anukki and anukkan were their male counterparts). Paravai built the Thyagaraja temple at Tiruvarur in Tamil Nadu and covered the vimana with gold, said Dr. Nagaswamy .
HONOURING PARAVAI
To honour her, Rajendra Chola I made her sit next to him in his royal chariot and drove her in a procession on the four main streets around the Thyagaraja temple. The Chola emperor made two bronze images resembling her and placed them before the deity in the Tiruvarur temple’s sanctum and worshipped them. “This is recorded in a long inscription in the Tiruvarur temple,” said Dr. Nagaswamy, a scholar in epigraphy. Rajendra Chola I re-built the Panaiyapuram temple in Paravai’s honour, when she was alive and the town around the temple was named after her.
The temple has two inscriptions of Rajendra Chola II (regnal years 1052 to 1064 CE), both datable to 1058 CE. One of the inscriptions mentions his gift of paddy to “Paravai Easwaramudaiyar Mahadeva in the town of Paravaipuram in Panaiyur Nadu”, falling under the larger division called “Rajendra Chola Valanadu.”
The temple has an inscription of Adhi Rajendra, who ruled from 1068 to 1071 CE. This inscription, dated 1070 CE, records the gift of tax-free land to the temple by a merchants’ guild of Paravaipuram to feed the pilgrims. There is a record of Kulotunga Chola I (regnal years 1070-1122 CE) on the gift of gold coins by a chieftain named Ponnambala Kizhan of Arumbakkam, near present-day Chennai, for lighting a perpetual lamp.
“An interesting point about the Panaiyapuram temple”, said Dr. Nagaswamy, “is that on the first day of the Tamil month of Chithirai every year, the sun rays fall on the Sivalinga enshrined in the sanctum and the idol of Satyambikai. The temple’s orientation is so perfect that this happens and special pujas are offered.”
S. Ganesa Gurukkal, the temple priest, was emphatic that the villagers would take all steps needed to save the temple. “We went to Chennai and gave a petition to the NHAI officials,” he said.
When contacted, an NHAI official said, “We are trying to save the temple. We are trying to look at other options. The NHAI headquarters has been informed about the villagers’ objections.”
Until now we have heard these NHAI gangs have been talking only about widening the road. Now, with inquiry from the top, we discover their devious plans are much more sinister.
Making and having an ‘underground electric power main line’ under the Sri Sri Krishna Balaram Temple is not suitable for the seva of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and will certainly disrupt the health of the residents and guests.
http://healwithyourhouse.com/problems/
Having a filthy, ‘big drainage line’ running anywhere near Srila Gurudeva’s Divine Transcendental Samadhi and Supremely Holy Body or Srila Prabhupada’s Beloved Bhajan Kurtir and Home at Sri Bhubaneswara is completely impossible to bear or permit.
Just think..The road widening plan has been exposed as actually an electric power main, a drainage pipe and service road plan right through the entire Temple compound. Was there ever a road widening plan? How many other plans are in the works which they are lying about or not telling us? Where will it stop and will it ever stop? This is clearly a severe demonic attack.
Grave concerns are arising whether His Divine Grace Srila Gour Govinda Srila Gurudeva and His Divine Grace Srila AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada can be safe, happy and well cared for in this dangerous environment. Hare Krishna.
let us hope and pray that good sense prevails
Very good! Some good news at last! The local government and NHAI should be forced to pay some compensation for their wanton vandalism and the damage it caused.
Looking at the destruction [photo above] I am still totally shocked!
It is disgusting what has happened there.
What our beloved Gurudeva struggled so hard to do there is destroyed in a few minutes. Kali-maharaja is really doing his thing.
Devotees recollect the old days in Bhubaneswar:
Bhagavata dasa [now Bhagavata Maharaja]:
“Actually there was nothing here, only a mud hut. You could look for miles in every direction and there was just vacant land.
All these big GBCs and Mahārājas’, who came to be with Prabhupāda, were saying to him, ‘This place is useless. It’s just a mud hut in the middle of the desert. There is nothing here. We should simply close this down and build something in Purī. Why are we wasting our time and money here?’
Prabhupāda looked at them and shook his head, and said, ‘You do not understand. Someday, this temple will be in the centre of the city and it will be one of the most important temples in our whole movement.’”
Upananda dasa:
“Whilst Śrīla Prabhupāda was in Bhubaneswar he poked his cane into the ground three times, and said, “I leave all my mercy here. I leave all my mercy here. I leave all my mercy here.”
Everyone should pray that the NHAI give back the land to His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada and to our Gurudeva.
Hopefully the Orissa [Odisha] NHAI (National Highways Authority of India) in Bhubaneswar accept the new plans.
YS
NPdasa.
Thank you, Sachinandan prabhu for the work you are doing. Thank you.