CHENNAI, INDIA, March 2, 2008: (HPI note: This is a series of reports on the incidents between the Chidambaram dikshitars and the government that led to the imprisonment and later release of 11 dikshitars and other protesters.) A Sanskrit-versus-Tamil row yesterday led to police and priests pushing and shoving each other at the Nataraja temple in Chidambaram, one of Tamil Nadu’s most popular shrines.
The priests had stopped devotional singer Arumugasamy from climbing up to the mukhamandapam, the elevated enclosure next to the sanctum sanctorum, to sing Tamil hymns. When the police came to the bard’s rescue, a scuffle broke out.
The priests use the mukhamandapam to pray to the deity in Sanskrit. Hymns from the Thevaram anthology, part of the Tamil Saiva Siddhantha tradition, are allowed in a lower enclosure.
Arumugasamy has challenged the tradition in court, saying the temple should treat Tamil on a par with Sanskrit. “We are not against the rendition of hymns from the Thevaram; the difference is only about which enclosure they should be sung from,” a temple source said over the phone.
Police reinforcements had already been sent to the temple in the morning, and they allowed only 25 devotees to accompany Arumugasamy inside the temple.