Vishnu related - Thirupathi Prasad and Thomas Monroe British GovernorThomas Monroe

This article is an incident which happened with the Thirupathi Prasad to Thomas Monroe, the British Governor for South India during the British regime. Thirupathi Balaji - Srinivasa - Venkatesha temple was/is one of teh richest temples of India. The Governor Monroe used to visited the temple to oversee the collections there. Since he was a Christian and the temple is of Hindu deity, he never used to visit the shrine in normal course. Once he went near the shrine and found the devotees partaking the 'Venpongal' prasad (food item offered to deity and distributed as prasad to devotees) with their hands.  They had also had their head shaved. All these created revulsion in the Governor's mind and he ordered his followers to throw the prasad from the devotees' hands and ordered them to dash the heads of the devotees with each others. He was  enjoying the disappointment and pain of the devotees. He was also teasing the devotees that if they eat this dirty prasad they will suffer from diarrhea and vomiting. The helpless hapless devotees could not anything except to pray to the Lord to make Monroe considerate and humane. Just at the time itself the Governor started having terrific stomach pain and no medicines gave any relief. He could not sleep in the night due to the pain. All the doctors from all over the country tried and could not help him. At that time one of his Hindu followers suggested that the problem may be due to his actions at the Thirupathi temple of harassing and teasing of the devotees and defiling the prasad. If this is the case he will be cured if he takes the prasad once. Since Monroe had tried all other things and failed without any relief, he agreed to try the prasad. He asked for the prasad and started eating the same. On putting the first portion in mouth itself he started feeling relief. By the time he took the prasad fully his stomach pain was cured. The Governor was so relived and happy he ordered that the prasad be given to the devotees without any restriction. He decreed to set apart the revenue collections form the Village 'kodapaayal' exclusively for the Venpongal Prasad to be offered to the deity Balaji. This Venpongal prasad in later days is known as the 'Monroe Prabhu Kangalam'. After the incident the Governor Thomas Monroe and his family members became devotees of Lord Balaji of Thirupathi.

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