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They kept the daily earnings which were around Rs.150,000 and grew manifold on special occasions and festivals. “Earlier, the two families used to auction the daily pujas for the two presiding deities starting at Rs.7,000 ($117) for Rukmini and Rs.20,000 for Lord Vitthoba. Nadkarni Committee.Ī former cabinet minister in Maharashtra, Dange said that the apex court’s verdict has already brought about a sea change in the past few months in the earnings of the temple, situated around 350 km southeast of Mumbai. The two families had challenged the decision of the state government to take over the temple in 1968 after the recommendations of the B.D. The VRTT move was prompted by a Supreme Court judgement in January in a four-decade- old litigation dismissing the claims of exclusive ancestral rights over the earnings and rituals at the temple by the Badve and Utpat families here.
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“We shall interview the candidates May 18 and finalise the appointments which shall be purely temporary and contractual with the remuneration depending on the merits of those selected,” said Dange. The VRTT advertised this week, inviting applications for eight posts of priests from all practising Hindus and women well-versed in the two-or-three special pujas for Lord Vitthoba and his consort Rukmini, besides other temple rites and rituals. We are keen that puja and rituals should be thrown open to all castes, especially non-Brahmins,” Anna Dange, chairman of the Vitthal Rukmini Temple Trust (VRTT) explained to IANS.
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“This is the first initiative in the country by any temple trust to break the centuries-old monopoly of the Brahmins over the temple puja and other rituals. With a Supreme Court prod, the renowned 900-year old Lord Vithoba Temple in the pilgrim town of Pandharpur will script religious history when it appoints its first women priests as also priests from the backward classes as part of an inclusive mission. Solapur (Maharashtra): Here’s another traditional male bastion set to crumble.