Invoking ‘rain god’, the priestly way !
By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Jul 3: To the scientific community it is environmental factors that determine climatic changes including quantum of rain-fall but in the religious pers- pective, atleast to some priests, ‘rain god’ holds the key to drench the earth.
Accordingly, a group of Manipuri Vaishnavite priests today conducted a rare prayer with the milking of cows before the shrine of the historic Shri Shri Go-vindajee temple (Palace Compound) and offering the rich protein extract to invoke the ‘rain god’ in the presence of an impressive number of believers, among whom were the Congress le-gislator E Kunjeshwor, who is also the Vice President of Govindajee Temple Board.
In the backdrop of the State Government having recently declared Manipur as ‘drought affected’ and consequently sanctioning an amount of Rs 4.41 crore for irrigation/agriculture-related activities, 18 priests of the Temple Board per-formed a nearly two hour long ritual, including mil-king two cows and spraying the milk upwards using manual sprayers.
Contrary to the scien-tists having already fore- cast delayed monsoon in India and about 24 hours earlier reports confirming onset of rainy season, Tem-ple Board’s supervisor (administration) G kula-chandra Sharma said, “Our temple board priests chan-ted the Vishnu Sharsanam and gopal Sharsanam hymns to call rains and bring about peace in ma-nipur.”
Call it coincidence or mercy of the ‘rain god’ to distress of not only the far-mers but the people of Ma- nipur who had been endu-ring hardships owing to scant rainfall this year around, pockets of valley districts received mild rain-fall for about 20 minutes in the afternoon.
Recounting similar situa-tion Manipur had endured about a decade back and when the then Chief Mi-nister W Nipamacha joined such an offering at the same location, Gokulchandra said, “This is a very rare prayer and we conduct it only in extreme situation like drought.
“when Oja (learned/teacher) Nipamacha was the Chief Minister, he too joined such prayer about a decade back at the temple complex and by God’s grace rains came a few days later.”
Meanwhile, official sources said normal rainfall usually recorded in Manipur upto June every year used to be about 739.50 mm whereas this year (till June) only 475 mm have been received thereby falling short by 58 percent.