| Temples & Legends Of Andhra
Pradesh |
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| Temples & Legends Of
India |
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TIRUPATI |
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| In the temple there
are two very important customs, namely, anointing the body of the Lord with camphor, and
offering all the hair on the head of the devotee as a sacrifice to the Lord. The custom of
anointing the body of the God with camphor has its origin from the fact, that at one time
an old Brahmin devotee took up a vow to dig a tank near the temple. Since he was a very
poor man, he fiimself did the work, and also pressed into service his wife who was fully
pregnant. When the lady began to feel the pangs of labor, the God himself, in the disguise
of a Brahmin youth, began to share with her the labor of carrying the earth. On noticing
this, the old man became jealous, at some other man sharing the good fortune of service to
the Lord, and so hit him with his crowbar. Then within the temple when he went to pray to
the Lord he found, to his surprise, blood pouring out at the exact spot from the body of
the idol, where the blow fell on the body of the youth. He then discovered that the Lord
himself had graced him, by coming to share his labor, and he immediately began to dress
the wound of the Lord with camphor. From that time the practice of anointing the body of
the deity with camphor has come into vogue. The origin of the other custom, which is very
famous and popular, viz., offering the hair on the devotees' head as a sacrifice to the
Lord, is shrouded in mystery, and exactly when and how this custom began nobody is able to
account for satisfactorily. |
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