Today religion in any form is big business..

Today religion in any form is big business..

And every day new rituals, new gurus, new methods are appearing..

This happens in Hinduism especially in the worship of Ayyappa or Shasta and later Gods..

Maybe the persons who drew up rules and procedures for sacrifices, havans, worship of Sun, Shakthi, Shiva, Vishnu, Ganesha, Subrahmanya etc had traditional and strict rules.. and agamas or shrutis and Smritis.. which were binding in absolute terms.

So, even if those authors and preceptors in those times might not have understood and considered the modern scientific thoughts, they were at least completely rule-bound for years. Therefore there was order and discipline of sorts...

These days in the worship of Ayyappa and many demi gods and man gods, each one calls his rules.. I have watched with interest how some young self proclaimed devotees of Ayyappa just device new types of lore, worship etc, drawing parts from old scriptures drawing part from local and vernacular practices, and adding many things from their own fertile imagination, with crass commercial interests..

Another thing we find is that Kalasams and Kumbhabhishekams are conducted with lots of pomp and many people collect money from the public even through emotional or physical extortion,, and use all the money for purposes other than the upkeep of the temple and maintaining regular poojas and naivedyams as prescribed.. And I am sure, the group, whatever way it is called..committee, samooham, governing body..., which organizes religious feats, have their square meals and comfortable existence assured out of public money for a few years preceding the function, and at the end of the function the remaining funds are used to enrich themselves..Of course many maintain accounts, but no one really scrutinzes the relevance, adequacy and the genuineness of the account for the purpose for which such funds are collected..

So, it is real big business.. mean business, without much capital but with lots of profit..

This issue calls for a lot of discussion