Spiritual leaders Sadhguru and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
Credit: X/@SadhguruJV and X/@ANI
Allegations of the presence of 'animal fat' in laddus served at the revered Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh as 'prasadam', have sparked a controversy across the country.
After politicians, spiritual leaders have now spoken up on the issue.
Sadhguru and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar have called for "devotees to run the temples" instead of governments.
Sadhguru, the founder of Isha Foundation, took to his X account saying that it is time that temples should be run by devotees.
"Devotees consuming beef tallow in the Temple prasadam is beyond disgusting. This is why Temples should be run by Devotees, not by government administrations. Where there is no Devotion, there shall be no sanctity. Time the Hindu Temples are run by devout Hindus, not by government administration," Sadhguru wrote in his post.
On the other hand, Ravi Shankar, founder of The Art of Living, said that "sentiments of Hindus are deeply wounded and this is something that cannot be forgiven."
"It's malicious and it is the height of greed of people who are involved in this process. So, they need to be punished severely. All their assets should be seized & they should be put in jail, whoever is remotely involved in this process...We need to check not just the laddu but every food product," he said, as reported by ANI.
Ravi Shankar also posed the question whether anyone is checking on the ghee that is being used.
"What about the ghee that is available in the market? Is anyone checking what they are putting in it? All those who adulterate food & put the mark that it is vegetarian and put any sort of non-veg stuff in it, should be very strictly punished...For the Temple management, we need to see that it is under the supervision of saints, swamis and spiritual leaders...We need to have a committee of spiritual leaders - both north and south, they should oversee," he said.
He also urged that a person from the government side should be appointed to play a 'minor role' in the running of temples across the country while the major decisions and supervision should be done by "religious boards like boards like SGPC, like the Muslim body, like Christians body."
The controversy started on Wednesday after Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu alleged that his predecessor, Jagan Mohan Reddy, allowed the use of substandard ingredients and animal fat in the laddus.
"Even Tirumala laddu was made with substandard ingredients...they used animal fat instead of ghee," claimed Naidu while addressing an NDA legislative party meeting in Amaravati.
A day later, the Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party released a lab report, run by the NDDB in Gujarat's Anand, that purportedly confirmed the presence of animal fat in the ghee samples sent by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which manages the famous Sri Venkateswara Swamy temple that attracts lakhs of devotees throughout the year.
(With DHNS inputs)