E-pujas

puja - offer
prasad - dat wat je offert; voedsel voor de Goden
mantra - spreuk


The business of God has always been a lucrative one — from the pre-Reformation Catholic Church’s ‘heaven for a price’ to the endless Brahmanical rituals of propitiation. The latest on the divine Hindu supermarket apparently are Internet websites offering online pujas and rituals for sale.
So, the laid-back devotee who wants to offer puja at the popular cave shrine of Vaishno Devi during the auspicious navaratra season can do so now without bothering with the long, physically arduous journey. A darshan of Sri Balaji can be accomplished similarly minus the trek to Tirupati simply by logging on to the temple’s official website. Most popular Hindu temples in India now offer this ‘service’, with the added bonus of the prasad being couriered to one’s doorstep. Also, through their websites, software manufacturers are offering what can best be described as ‘e-pujas’, wherein a picture of the deity appears onscreen, and one can click on various items, like flowers, diyas, laddoos, even mantras, to offer them to the deity.

E-pujas could have a certain democratising influence on the religion, since anyone can perform them for a price. This is the golden rule of the consumerist global marketplace, where everything has a price and no differences are recognised other than one’s buying capacity. While this might be seen as encouraging further commercialisation of religion, like most Internet-related things, it also means a loosening of rigid controls. Three cheers, then, for e-controlled divinity.

Sinterklaas

Je plank van nog te lezen boeken
raakt steeds voller, kraakt en piept.
Je interesse borrelt driftig;
'dat is leuk!' Wat eig'lijk niet?
Kadootjespiet dacht: Is dat ziek?
Of moet ik dat ondersteunen?

Met deel drie over India,
poëzie van Papua's,
natuur in Nicaragua,
creatief met pindakaas,
de bijbel volgens Spinoza,
Taoistisch algebra,
liefde tijdens cholera,
geschiedenis van Gibraltar,
nee, dat is het niet!