Otomi Temple Destroyed in Hidalgo State, Mexico: Is Hinduism Under Threat?

• A religious Otomi temple has been destroyed in a religious site extending into the forest in Hidalgo State, Mexico
• The assailants identified themselves as Jehova's Witnesses and said they did it because the altars appeared to be blasphemous
• Hindu statesman Rajan Zed has urged the Mexican president and the governor to take immediate action against such acts and provide security and protection to ceremonial sites

A religious Otomi temple has been destroyed in a religious site extending into the forest in Hidalgo State, Mexico. The vandals have reported having toppled the stone structures used as altars and scattered religious offerings. Damage to carved stones, paintings, and images at the faraway mountain shrine, called Mayonihka or Mexico Chiquito, was also disclosed.

Jamie Chavez, the leader of the Otomi Nation group, mentions that the natural space itself has been destroyed and that is it easy to replace damaged objects but spaces can be difficult to restore. Chavez said Indians from several states "use the site to perform ceremonies for Mother Nature, and some even do weddings or baptisms. What the elders want is for them to stop invading, or destroying the site."

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A researcher has said that the assailants identified themselves as Jehova's Witnesses and said they did it because the altars appeared to be blasphemous. However, the spokesperson for the Christian denomination in Mexico said that the accusation appeared to be untrue. "To the extent, we have been able to investigate, we found this story to be false," he said.

Luis Perez Lugo, a professor at University of Chapingo, said, "I was there, and the Jehova's Witnesses said they had done it," after interviewing a nearby village whose inhabitants had executed the act. Lugo also mentioned that some of them have converted recently and used to use the site for Otomi rituals earlier. The professor also stated, "They said it (the pre-Hispanic ceremonies) weren't in their Bible, and, in their words, they said it was piggish, garbage that wasn't in the Bible, and so they went to clear out what was offensive to their God."

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Hindu statesman Rajan Zed has urged the Mexican president and the governor to take immediate action against such acts and provide security and protection to ceremonial sites. Many have been damaged in the past and had to be repaired so that the followers of the tradition could continue with their religious practices

– prepared by Varsha Gupta of NewsGram. Twitter: @VarshaGupta94

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