These videos have several devotees raising their hands to the elephant sculpture to collect the water. Some of them were even seen with paper cups, collecting the water which they thought was coming straight from the feet of the deities inside the temple.
Videos were making rounds on social media, displaying crowds of devotees at Mathura’s famous Banke Bihari temple queueing up and sipping droplets of water falling from an elephant sculpture within the premises, thinking that it was “charan amrit” or holy water falling from a sculpture installed at the sanctum sanctorum. However, the water has turned out to be a discharge from an air conditioner.
The videos show several followers raising their hands towards the elephant structure to collect the water. They drink it and put the rest on their heads.
Ashish Goswami, a caretaker of the temple said, “People have spread rumours that water dripping from the elephant structure is charan amrit.”.
“People should remove this misconception from their minds. Water drips from the AC installed in the sanctum sanctorum. This is not ‘charan amrit’ at all,” he said.
Goswami added that getting the “charan amrit” is not so easy and is available only inside the temple.
The devotees, however, seemed undeterred by the caretaker’s clarification.
But, little did she understand that the water, as a matter of fact, was coming from the AC, not from the sanctum sanctorum.
“This is holy water. It is because of our good ‘karma’ (deeds), we are getting this water,” she said.
