India is home to many temples and crores of rupees are spent annually in their upkeep.
Each temple is unique in its own way.
Devotees offer crores of rupees and gold ornaments as donations to these temples.
Generally in temples, devotees get sweets or some food items as ‘prasad’, but in this temple of Mahalaxmi, devotees receive ornaments. Devotees who come here for ‘darshan’ also go home with gold and silver coins.
The Mahalaxmi temple in Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh follows this bizarre custom. This temple receives offerings worth crores each year that even includes gold and silver ornaments.
So, around Diwali each year, a certain part of this offering is returned to the devotees in the form of ‘prasad’. It is said that people travel thousands of miles to come to the temple and receive this ‘prasad’. What’s ridiculous is the fact that sometimes, the travelling cost becomes more than the cost of the ‘prasad’.
However, here the gold and silver ‘prasad’ is not treated as jewellery or a precious metal but as a blessing from the goddess of wealth and is never spend or sold off – it is in fact kept in the locker of the house for safety.
It is also said that every offering made to the goddess is kept note of, so that the authorities know how much gold is to be returned in the form of ‘prasad’.