{"id":2298,"date":"2020-07-02T13:20:06","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T13:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/?p=2298"},"modified":"2020-07-02T14:19:30","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T14:19:30","slug":"online-darshan-during-covid-19-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/2020\/07\/02\/online-darshan-during-covid-19-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Online Darshan during COVID-19 Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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By Tanya Mittal<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The lockdown for COVID-19 pandemic in India has ensured a complete shutdown of all places of\nworship. Since India has a predominantly religious minded population that worships one deity or the\nother, the use of Virtual Reality in Darshan is slowly becoming an actual reality. Instead of removing\nfootwear before Darshan, people now need to strap on headgear because new products introducing\nvirtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are helping people go to any place of worship with\nfootwear. The government is going to slowly ease the imposed restrictions with time and as places\nbegin to unlock, religious institutions such as temples, churches, mosques, and gurudwaras would be\namong the last to open publically. This is being done to follow social distancing both in word and\nspirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently Alia Bhat received a lot of criticism for using her mobile phone to record late actor Rishi\nKapoor\u2019s final rites. Media sources later confirmed that she was actually video-conferencing with\nRishi Kapoor\u2019s daughter Riddhima who wasn\u2019t present physically due to the lockdown. This\npandemic has completely changed the way people mourn as well. Conventionally a Pandit is\nrequired to conduct the religious ceremonies, but in the wake of current unprecedented situation\nmany families today have no option but to say goodbye (pay their shraddhanjali) to their loved ones\nthrough a live streamed shraadh. Many news websites reported the use of Zoom or Skype app\nduring funerals. These are rare and uncertain times, as the lockdown is affecting the fundamental\nritual of performing the last rites as per Hindu norms, which is the immersion of ashes. Families are\nunable to take the ashes to pilgrimage sites like Kashi or Haridawar due to travel restrictions and\nhave no option but to leave the urns in lockers at the crematoria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the age old saying goes \u201cwhere there is a will there is a way\u201d- so people need something to fuel\nthis will during difficult times like these.Technology has come to their aid as a blessing from God and\ndevotees are using it to reach out to their religious communities in large numbers online and trying\nto find solace in their faith. Though social distancing requires people to be physically apart, people\nstill yearn to be in the loving embrace of God but that too has become very difficult as places of\nworship are inaccessible at present. This too is a reason for distress as lack of access to spaces for\npraying and finding solace has become overwhelming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore Virtual darshan is playing the role of the Good Samaritan by binding communities as\npeople can now perform aartis sitting in the comfort of their drawing rooms. Temples have started\nto ramp up live darshan and e-Puja features on their websites for devotees; especially senior citizens\nwho are stuck at home and don\u2019t want to miss their daily rituals. Many pujaris or priests have\nstarted webcasting Aartis and uploading the daily prayers on Facebook and other social media. The\nlockdown has also affected business revenue of the places of worship (donations and daan), as\ndevotees had to stop visiting; but thanks to technology, apps allow streaming “live darshans” and\nenable users to contribute their donations online. Some apps like The Live Darshan, i2i Live, Aastha,\nShemaroo Bhakti, Kalpnik app etc have user friendly interface to allow direct video-streaming feed\nfrom cameras set up in various temples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One click on the list of temples in the apps can offer a view of the daily rituals at various temples.\nDevotional songs, Bhajans,travel routes, and maps are also provided for the convenience of Pilgrims.\nExhaustive websites of holy shrines like Vaishno Devi, Sri Balaji temple, and Mathura Vrindavan, are\nusing technology to benefit their devotees as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile some religious institutions are still open for people in need. Many Gurudwaras in Delhi\nhave increased hygiene practices and continued community Langars with social distancing rules in\nplace. Wash basins and soaps are provided at the entrance of most functioning temples or\ngurudwaras and the staff use gloves and masks while cleaning or serving. In fact, many daily wage\nearners and small business owners, who are facing economic hardships because of the shutdown,\ncome regularly for these Langars at the Gurdwaras according to media reports. Others use\ntechnology to their benefit to hear live audio kirtans and prayers on their phones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides these apps, famous temples such as the Tirumala temple in south India have their own apps\nthrough which people can book puja slots or make online donations. Talking of the flipside, as\npeople look for some hope and right information at this time regarding the pandemic, cyber\ncriminals are using the occasion to scam web users.As the pandemic spreads, covid-19-related cyber\nfrauds are also on the rise. A lot of fraudsters and fake astrologers sell fake ‘miracle cures’ and even\nconvince devotees to share their OTP (one-time password) for online consultations and vanish as\nsoon as the bitcoins in the form of Daan and Dakshina are credited into their accounts, thereby\nmultiplying the agony and trauma faced by the public. These malicious programmers can track all\nour online activity easily. We have definitely welcomed these new multipurpose apps to make our\nlives better, and their effectiveness is well established, but there\u2019s a flipside too. The impending\ndanger of letting AI (Artificial intelligence) controlled apps into our lives is that sooner or later, our\ngadgets will have the nasty power to control us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following suit, are we going to go digital in our beliefs too with our technological dependence as the\nworld remains locked indoors? Will this be the desirable turn of events in the future? Is this not\nchallenging the essence of visiting shrines and temples altogether to be in physical proximity of our\nchosen deities? Because that’s what we’ve been doing since forever- visiting temples and holy places\nfor years and years as per customs. The unsolved query remains whether we have willingly accepted\nthis new way of life or has this been forced onto us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Never had we ever imagined that we would one day face a situation wherein visiting temples virtually would actually become a reality. Sometimes, things do take a drastic turn and for all of us this year in 2020, the Corona Virus Pandemic has been that change giving us many new \u201cNormals\u201d. Only time will tell how this will shape our lives in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":2305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[737,990,1571,1559,1576,1572,1570,1574,1547,1220,796,1563,1568,1569,1549,1552,560,1553,1555,1565,1562,538,341,1550,1551,1546,1573,1554,1575,1577,319,1561,1557,1558,1566,1242,744,897,1556,1567,1560,1548,323,1564],"class_list":["post-2298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","tag-aarti","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-astrologers","tag-augmented-reality","tag-bhajans","tag-bhakt","tag-bitcoin","tag-church","tag-corona","tag-corona-virus","tag-covid-19","tag-cyber-crime","tag-daan","tag-dakshina","tag-darsgan","tag-deity","tag-devotee","tag-digital","tag-digitalization","tag-e-puja","tag-fraud","tag-god","tag-gurudwara","tag-kirtan","tag-langar","tag-lockdown","tag-mosque","tag-online-payment","tag-pandit","tag-pilgrimage","tag-religion","tag-scam","tag-shraadh","tag-shraddhanjali","tag-skype","tag-social-distancing","tag-temple","tag-temples","tag-video-calling","tag-virtual-darshan","tag-virtual-reality","tag-virus","tag-worship","tag-zoom","post_format-post-format-quote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2298"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2312,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2298\/revisions\/2312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}