The devotees who flock to see Ram Lalla at the Ram temple in Ayodhya will no longer be greeted with tilaks on their foreheads. Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust has stopped the priests of the sanctum sanctorum from the practice with immediate effect.

The priests will not offer charanamrita (water from the ablution of the deity) to devotees either. Devotees cannot hand dakshina (donations by devotees) to the priests but must drop it in the donation box. Priests as well as devotees are upset with such firmans of the trust.

Trust has its reasons

Since 22 January after the pranapratishtha of Ram Lalla and the inauguration of the Ayodhya temple, a large number of devotees have been flocking to the holy town for darshan. As a matter of habit or instinct, most devotees wish to touch the murti.

While the trust had issued guidelines to control the crowd of devotees, the devotees could not be disciplined.

The man in charge of the trust office, Prakash Gupta said the authority’s decision was final.

Earlier, devotees who had ordinary darshan were allowed to reach up to a barricade placed at a distance from the murti while VIP darshan entailed an opportunity to have darshan of Ram Lalla from a greater proximity. After the darshan, the priests would anoint them by applying sandalwood on their foreheads and giving charanamrita.

Devotees reached out to reporters, saying that in many temples, the sandalwood tilak and charanamrita are considered prasada and stopping the practice is wrong.

Against the Ramanand tradition that Champat Rai tom-tommed

Acharya Satyendra Das, the chief priest of the temple, said that the trust had stopped him and other priests from applying sandalwood tilak and taking dakshina. “We cannot apply sandalwood to all the devotees and we must ask the devotees who offer money to us directly to drop it in the donation box. Charanamrita has been stopped too. If this is the decision of the trust, we will follow it for sure, but this initiative is wrong according to the Ramanand tradition. There is a tradition of applying tilak and giving charanamrita in all the temples of Ramanand tradition.”

Amid a nationwide debate over the rituals observed by the temple, the trust’s general secretary Champat Rai had made a statement that the Ramanandi tradition alone would be followed in Ayodhya.