Temple trust move to simplify rituals

patna: the trust of the well-known hanuman mandir near the patna railway junction has initiated measures for producing authenticated versions of religious scriptures and simplifying different types of sanskar and methods of worship mainly for freeing hindu religion from caste prejudices. the trust has also taken steps to publish several authenticated books on various rituals like the satya narayan katha, which, it says, in the present form is practically devoid of any katha and has mahatmya only.the trust has approached eminent sanskrit scholars, particularly acharya sitaram chaturvedi of muzaffarnagar in uttar pradesh, for preparing a new brihat satya narayan katha by incorporating excerpts from the vedas, upanishads, bhagvat and bhavishya purana for an authenticated method of worship of satya narayan bhagwan. likewise, new texts based on the vedas and other scriptures on ceremonies like marriage, shraddh, grihpravesh etc are also being published. the trust has built a sanskar mandap on the temple premises. now upnayan and ceremonies relating to other sanskars will be performed on the temple premises from january 14 next. anyone belonging to any caste will be entitled to have upnayan and other sanskars in the sanskar mandap. discrimination based on birth prevalent in society will not come in the way of such sanskar ceremonies to be performed on the temple premises. boys in the age group of seven to 11 years will be accepted for upnayan. a unique system of celebrating birthday has also been developed in order to discourage five-star culture for such celebrations. vardhapana sanskar will be performed on the temple premises for a very moderate fee. prayer and homa as part of this ceremony will be arranged for the health, longevity and prosperity of the person concerned. a shop has been opened on the temple premises for making available authenticated gems at moderate prices. the profit from this business will be used for treatment of poor cancer patients. the trust runs the mahabir cancer sansthan at phulwarisharif on the outskirts of patna, which is regarded as one of the best such centres in eastern india. the mahabir arogya sansthan, run by the trust at kankarbagh here, provides medical consultation and test facilities at moderate rates. the secretary of the temple rust, kishore kunal, who is also the vice-chancellor of kameshwara singh darbhanga sanskrit university, told times news network that the annual revenue of the trust has become 10 times more than the declared revenue of the baidyanath dham temple at deoghar and hanumangarhi at ayodhya and that it is five times more than that of the vishwanath temple at kashi, he added. kunal said the mahabir mandir trust will produce authenticated books on scriptures for freeing religion from the clutches of the chosen few. standard books based on gita and kathopnishad will also be published for authenticated katha as part of death rites because the present text of garur purana, which lays stress only on dos and don'ts, has deviated from gita's description of the life after death, he maintained.