A temple in Bangalore where the milk offered to Lord Shiva is returned as buttermilk
India is a land of temples and Shivlings, and for years now, the Shivling Abhishekam has been done with water, milk, curd, honey, sugarcane juice, and so much more. And a cry and word of caution for years now has been that everything offered to the Shivling, along with the milk, is just being wasted. In a country where thousands of people sleep on empty stomachs every day, wastage of such precious items is deemed as completely wasteful and immoral.
There are cries and contempt against people who ‘waste’ milk and honey and curd on the Shivling and they are asked to donate the same to someone needy and then they will receive more blessings.
And to put these disagreements to silence, a temple in Bangalore has a unique practice. Instead of letting the milk flow out during the Abhishekam ceremony, they use it in a rather unique way.
The temple
The temple that has been making use of the milk offered to the Shivling and giving people a reason to appreciate the temple administration and the priest’s thinking is the Gangadhareshwara temple in Bangalore.
Located in T Dasarahalli region, the Gangadhareshwara temple is unique in its way to turn the milk offered to the Shivling into buttermilk, and then offer it back to the devotees as Prasad the next day.
According to an article in Bangalore Mirror, Eshwarananda Swamy, head of the temple, said “I was doing research for a long time as to how best we can serve devotee. I have also read that as milk is a very important product, it is better not to waste it. We do perform abhisheka, but take adequate care that other items used in abhisheka such as vermillion or turmeric don’t get mixed so that it milk doesn’t get spoilt. Then, we follow a hygienic process where in the milk can get fermented so that it turns into buttermilk. As it takes a day, we usually serve buttermilk on Tuesdays.”
And so, in the Gangadhareshwara temple, the Abhishekam done on the Shivling is performed in a way that the purity and properties of the milk stay intact and there is no mixing which could spoil the prasad. And then the collected milk is turned into buttermilk, especially on Mondays, the day of Lord Shiva, and the day when hundreds of litres of milk is offered to Lord Shiva, and the buttermilk prasad is then offered to the devotees on the next day.
Other unique offerings
The Gangadhareshwara temple is not the only one where a unique kind of prasad is offered to Lord Shiva and his devotees!
In India, Lord Shiva is the beginning and the end, the finite and the infinite, and the ever-powerful who can transform the Universe but also destroy and end it. And so naturally, in different parts of India, he is offered different things. From liquor to Panchamrit, and from ‘bhaang’ to Payasam, every devotee in every region has his or her own way to please Lord Shiva and get his blessings.
