Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

15.000 religious coconuts a day

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • 15.000 religious coconuts a day

    In these days where the world seems to go nuts about some drawings, it's a relief to see some peaceful religious coconuts

    The coconut temple courier service

    How does a temple in India make sure that it gets 15,000 coconuts a day delivered for its rituals?

    It simply depends on the faith of its thousands of Hindu devotees who run a unique voluntary courier service to faithfully deliver the fruit every day without fail.

    This is the thousands of coconuts, which can total more than 100,000 on festival days - reach the famous Maa Tarini temple in the eastern Indian state of Orissa every day.

    Coconuts are used extensively in Hindu religious rites - they are offered to the gods, and smashed on the ground or some other object during initiation and inauguration ceremonies.

    This free courier service relies on a network of collection boxes on roads and other temples, passenger buses and devotees simply carrying the fruit to the temple.

    "It's a religious courier service without any parallel in India," says Gurcharan Singh, secretary of the temple administration.

    He is right.

    Hold a coconut in your hand on a highway in Orissa and the next bus will surely stop to pick it up to take it to the temple in Ghatgaon in Keonjhar district.

    The drivers' faith in the goddess Maa Tarini is complete - it is common to find the space behind their seats stacked with coconuts.

    Even if the bus is on a different route, the driver will make sure to drop the coconuts in a collection box en route or pass them on to a bus headed for Ghatgaon.

    "If I refuse to carry coconuts to the goddess, I may face various odds on my way," says Arun Sahoo, a bus driver.

    'Batons in a relay race'

    The drivers believe that carrying the coconuts to the deity ensures a safe journey.

    They tell stories of bus drivers who failed to pick up coconuts from devotees and met with engine failures or accidents.

    "No one can refuse to carry a coconut," says shop owner Rabindra Patnaik.

    The buses usually dump their coconuts in collection boxes across the state, from where other buses or devotees headed to the temple pick up them up on their final journey.

    Temple officials say coconuts land up from neighbouring states like West Bengal and Bihar through this amazing network.

    "The coconut changes hands like batons in a relay race before reaching its destination," says devotee Bijay Laxmi Rath.

    At the busy temple, priests take turns to break the coconuts in front of the deity.

    A few hundred coconuts find the place near the deity's feet, and the rest of them are sold cheaply to local shop owners.

    This has spawned a local coconut-based sweets and oil industry.

    The coconut courier has also helped to make Maa Tarini an extremely popular deity in Orissa

    By one estimate, there are over 1,000 Maa Tarini temples in Orissa today, which also serve as collection points for the fruit headed for the main temple.

    The popularity of the deity is also evinced in the fact that three local music companies have sold more than 100,000 copies of tapes containing Maa Tarini devotional songs.
    Edit : dammit, i forgot the link :

    BBC, News, BBC News, news online, world, uk, international, foreign, british, online, service
    11
    Yes
    27.27%
    3
    No
    0.00%
    0
    Coconuts is the future
    36.36%
    4
    Bananas forever !!!
    36.36%
    4
    Last edited by BlackCat; February 4, 2006, 13:39.
    With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

    Steven Weinberg

  • #2
    I don't think things are supposed to make sense in religion.
    Why can't you be a non-conformist just like everybody else?

    It's no good (from an evolutionary point of view) to have the physique of Tarzan if you have the sex drive of a philosopher. -- Michael Ruse
    The Nedaverse I can accept, but not the Berzaverse. There can only be so many alternate realities. -- Elok

    Comment


    • #3
      Mmmm this is making me hungry for coconuts... Religionin general ought to be more focused on food.
      Visit First Cultural Industries
      There are reasons why I believe mankind should live in cities and let nature reclaim all the villages with the exception of a few we keep on display as horrific reminders of rural life.-Starchild
      Meat eating and the dominance and force projected over animals that is acompanies it is a gateway or parallel to other prejudiced beliefs such as classism, misogyny, and even racism. -General Ludd

      Comment


      • #4
        I think the people who worshipped Haile Salasse while smoking pot had more fun.
        "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." -- JFK Inaugural, 1961
        "Extremism in the defense of liberty is not a vice." -- Barry Goldwater, 1964 GOP Nomination acceptance speech (not George W. Bush 40 years later...)
        2004 Presidential Candidate
        2008 Presidential Candidate (for what its worth)

        Comment


        • #5
          Cocnuts?
          Speaking of Erith:

          "It's not twinned with anywhere, but it does have a suicide pact with Dagenham" - Linda Smith

          Comment


          • #6
            Does cocnuts make sense in religion ?
            How, eh...Freudian...

            Comment


            • #7
              But how'd there get to India?? African swallows don't migrate and European don't have the proper wingspan-to-velocity ratio to carry coconuts all the way to India.

              Comment


              • #8
                What's the speed of a European swallow?
                "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." -- JFK Inaugural, 1961
                "Extremism in the defense of liberty is not a vice." -- Barry Goldwater, 1964 GOP Nomination acceptance speech (not George W. Bush 40 years later...)
                2004 Presidential Candidate
                2008 Presidential Candidate (for what its worth)

                Comment


                • #9
                  Gee. I dunno. YIIIIIIIEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    you can only eat fish on friday... what's up with that?
                    Monkey!!!

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      not only are coconuts kosher, but it is kosher to drink coconut milk with meat. Ditto for soymilk.
                      "A person cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human. To become human, is what this individual person, has been created for.” Martin Buber

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Hardcore
                        "I work in IT so I'd be buggered without a computer" - Words of wisdom from Provost Harrison
                        "You can be wrong AND jewish" - Wiglaf :love:

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          actaully, it's the outer crust that is hard
                          Monkey!!!

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Mind you, 15.000...that's a very exact number
                            Speaking of Erith:

                            "It's not twinned with anywhere, but it does have a suicide pact with Dagenham" - Linda Smith

                            Comment

                            Working...
                            X