DWARKA SEER AGAINST BAN
Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of Dwaraka Sharda Peeth, on Sunday said there should be no ban on loudspeakers at places of worship of any religion. If at all such a ban had to be imposed, it should be enforced on loudspeakers at the mosques first, he added. He was speaking at a press conference at Sri Vidya Math (a monastery) in Varanasi.
VARANASI: Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of Dwaraka Sharda Peeth, on Sunday said there should be no ban on loudspeakers at places of worship of any religion.
If at all such a ban had to be imposed, it should be enforced on loudspeakers at the mosques first, he added. He made the comment even as the Uttar Pradesh government ordered the removal of all loudspeakers from religious structures and other places where these were being used without proper permission.
Speaking at a press conference at Sri Vidya Math (a monastery) in Varanasi, Swami Swaroopanand said, ““If a ban on loudspeakers at religious places is implemented, loudspeakers at all religious places should be banned. This ban should not be restricted to the places of worship of any single religion,” he said.
He also came down heavily on ‘pseudo sadhus’, saying they were a major threat to the Sanatan Dharma (Eternal Faith or Hinduism). These sadhus had not only disobeyed Sanatan Dharma but were also making attempts to change both shruti and smriti, he said. Shruti refers to sacred literature considered to be the product of divine revelation. In Hinduism, the revealed texts encompass the four Vedas, the Brahmanas (ritual treatises), the Aranyakas (forest books) and the Upanishads (philosophical elaborations on the Vedas).
The Smritis are a body of Hindu texts usually attributed to an author. They include the epics the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas among others.
He said the onus was on the true sadhus and sanyasis to carry forward the tradition of sanatan dharma as per its dignity. As long as mahatmas (great souls) were committed to their duty with devotion, the victory of sanatan dharma will continue, he said.