Mangalore, September 3: It was a historic day for Shri Gokarnatheshwara Temple in Kudroli, the showpiece of on-going Mangalore Dasara. Hundreds of widows, who are considered to be a curse in traditional Hindu society, on Monday, thronged the holy place to get a warm reception from temple authorities.
As a new addition to the second most popular Dasara of Karnataka, around 1,900 widows were presented with special gifts by the temple authorities. Each widow received a saree worth Rs 300, a small kumkum box, bangles, and jasmine flower - materials normally not part of her repertoire as per ancient religious traditions.
Padmaraj, Treasurer, of the Temple told 'coastaldigest.com' that sarees and flowers were distributed as 'prasadam' to widows present at the rituals held in the morning.
Although the Temple had planned to distribute 1500 sarees this year, more than 1900 widows took benefit of the special 'prasadam', he said adding that there were a large number of widows who could not get the sarees due to the shortage.
“The names of the ones who did not get this 'prasadam' were noted and coupons were issued and they can collect the same on October 12 from the Temple premises,” he informed.
Explaining about what made the Temple authorities to think of distributing sarees and kumkum to widows, he said: “It was noticed previously that widows never used to join hands to pull the silver chariot, as they are always considered untouchables in the society. This made us resolve to change the system of ill-treating widows, and with God's grace for the first time in the entire country, we could do this successfully”
Anandi and Leelavathi, the two elderly widows from a remote village in Dakshina Kannada, who were in queue of widows to register their name for saree distribution, expressed contentment over the Temple's gesture. “We feel good to visit the Temple and participate in puja” she added.
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