Beginning from the Antharvedi chariot to Ramatheertham, and to the most recent Singarayakonda Lakshmi Narasimha Swami temple incident, more than 50 such atrocities affecting Vedic temples is beyond alarming. It is time to act. It requires an appropriate collective response from everyone in society.

Can a vigraha in a temple protect Himself? If He is not powerful to protect Himself, how will He protect those who seek Him?

We need vigraha to access and serve God for our sake. As vigraha, God abides by the innate nature of the material that is used in the making (of the vigraha).  He does not move, does not talk nor does magical illusions.  However, He invokes the necessary qualities within you for your upliftment and for your protection. If you destroy the deity, you are hurting yourself by limiting the primary way in which you can connect with Him. Ultimately, it is only your loss.  So, as a collective society, we need to protect this divine form of the Lord for our own sake.

If the light is turned off, darkness becomes an obstacle for us. The light does not suffer. The light only glows for the benefit of others, not for itself.

Are you leading an effort of protecting the institution of temples in Andhra Pradesh?

As always, we are serving God who is here for all of us in the form of archa vigraha. We are not leading anything. It is the duty of everyone who want to stand for dharma, the righteous way of leading life as prescribed by our rushis in the Vedic scriptures to respond in the way they can.

Are you against the government in this aspect?

Our goal is the task in hand.  All those who are conscious of what is happening must work in their respective arenas to ensure that necessary action is taken to locate the doers, punish them, and build a framework such that these incidents never happen again. People, government, the Endowment Department, and society at large must play their role.  Otherwise, they may end up facing the consequences of their inaction.

What is your plan of action?

Beginning January 17th, (after the current dhanurmasam deeksha concludes at the Vijaya Kiladri hills), we plan to visit these temples that were affected.  We will seek the opinion of the local leaders and formulate a plan of action with these teams.  Our initial plan is to see that the damage that was done is first rectified.

After this initial step, we need to ensure that the rest of the temples have the necessary infrastructure and teams that can take care of the temple as well as take action against anyone who meddles with the system.

What is the situation with 1000 pillar mantap in Thirumala?

The high court justice has ruled for Thirumala to be given time in rebuilding it and thus we are waiting for that to be done.

What do you expect from media?

As always, we hope that the media does not aim to sensationalize the news but cooperate and support in finding out more details about such incidents. In addition, media outlets need to keep trust in place that the public has bestowed in them. The aim for everyone must be to respect and protect our places of worship in all their glory.

Deity, a vigraham (graham = one that holds the eternal thatthva, God; vi = fully, a lot), is that which holds the supreme eternal thatthva that exists everywhere into one form through a procedure defined in the agama scriptures.  The vigraha has the ability to bestow the experience of the same supreme eternal thatthva to the one who approaches Him and seeks Him.

Temple, an alayam (layam = to unite, aa = fully), is a place of worship that can unite one with the supreme eternal thatthva, God.

Therefore, we all must be alert in protecting such places of worship with gratitude and respect to the entire institution of temples.

– From media interview with HH Chinna Jeeyar Swamiji
– 4 th and 5 th January 2020