‘Ban animal sacrifice’

THANK you, Yogin Devan, for providing us with the wonderful opportunity in your column, “Stopping religious sacrifice must be a personal decision,” the POST, April 3-7, to reflect on our childhood memories of Isipingo Temple.

The temple does not draw the crowd between Good Friday and Easter Monday like the 1970s. The reason being various temples have now used the Amman prayers as a draw card.

If my memories serve me correctly, a local temple is concerned more about self-enrichment through the family-owned temple.

Even the priests are drawn from the family circle, some of them have no experience, just a dhoti and he becomes a guru.

There has to be a change of thinking from our devotees as well.

Many temples, including the Cato Manor Temple, allowed animal sacrifice. Thankfully, they became enlightened and stopped.

Our Tamil scriptures do not endorse the slaughtering of animals for God. It is man-made. However, times have changed, life has become faster, and our children are asked to obey without question.

We need to find ways to think differently. Winds of change depends on the new generation.

Maybe it is time for Devan to co-ordinate a round table conference for all our Tamil temple elders and temples that sacrifice, to ban the sacrifice of animals. This will provide an excellent platform for educating, which will call for an alternative to animal sacrifice.

The words of Albert Einstein always intrigue me: “If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.”

DHAYALAN MOODLEY

Mobeni Heights