Chennai, August 6(BPNS)

After the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment minister,P.K .Sekar Babu inaugurated the Tamil Archanai at Kapaleeswar temple, Mylapore on Thursday, the archanai in all the 46 temples commenced from Friday.

Sri Ranganathar Swamy temple in Srirangam,  Meenakshi Amman temple in Madurai, Peruvudayiar temple in Thanjavur are among the 46 major temples of Tamil Nadu where archana in Tamil began from Friday.

In 1971, the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi had mooted the idea of Tamil archanai in temples of the state and the then Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment minister, Kannapan had even made an announcement.  However, it was not further taken forward owing to different constraints.

From Friday onwards in the 46 big temples of the state, the priests have commenced chanting the ‘Potri’ (archanai) in Tamil. The practice has been to chant the potri in Sanskrit.

The HR&CE ministry of Tamil Nadu has already prepared a set of 14 different Potris and the booklets were distributed to the identified priests.

The Tamil Nadu government is planning to extend the facility to other temples of the state if there are demands from the local population of the state.HR&CE department will also permit to conduct  “Kumbabishekham” in Tamil if a large section of devotees wanted it.

 Minister for HR&CE, P.K. Sekar Babu while speaking to BPNS said,” These are all choices of devotees and the department will extend Tamil archanai in other temples if demand rises from those places. The Kumbabishekham will be done if ‘Agamas’ permitted it and we won’t put any pressure on anyone. These are to be done without hurting the sentiments of a large number of devotees and the government will take the opinion of the devotees across the state and move ahead if necessary.”