22 Qualified Female Priests Who Are Competent To Do Poojas In Kerala
Update: 2021-10-13 10:54 IST
One of the 22 women receives ‘deeksha’ from K V Subhash Thantri at Nagaraja Kshethram, Peramangalam
In the state of Kerala, 22 female priests are ready to perform poojas rooted in Hinduism. Women who have formally acquired the 'order' of 'priestdom,' a right that had been the monopoly of a portion of the Hindu faith for a long time, will now dispute it.
In the previous week, at the Nagaraja Kshethram, Peramangalam, in Muvattupuzha, these woman priests acquired 'deeksha', a teacher's approval that the student can execute priestly duties) from KV Subhash Thantri.
The female priests are capable of performing poojas like 'Bhagavathi Seva' and 'Ganapathy Homam.' Devotees have also requested that these poojas be performed by women, according to the thantri. Subhash Thantri is currently preparing 13 additional women for deeksha in the next weeks.
The right to perform rituals in temples has been limited to men of the Brahmin caste for many years. Until recently have males from other castes been permitted to conduct rituals at Kerala's devaswom board temples.
Tamil Nadu's M K Stalin government has announced that trained women would be permitted to serve as temple priests. The launching of woman priests in Kerala occurred a few weeks after Tamil Nadu's decision, albeit this was purely coincidental. For two years, all of the women were put through rigorous training. Classes have been offered online since the beginning of Covid
Latha Sudheer, a 43-year-old accountant who quit her work to study priestly duties, says temples were present in all of her early memories. She stated that the society will soon evolve and will accept the changes. However, those who had embraced Islam and Christianity are among the trained female priests.
n
ADVERTISEMENT