UNITED STATES, October 28, 2021 (RNS by Dheepa Sundaram): Religious rituals are sensory encounters. The smell of candles, incense, the taste of prasad, the blessed food at Hindu worship practices: Each is aimed at involving the whole body in the spiritual experience. A question for our pandemic times: Where do online rituals fit into this sensory realm? What would be the appeal? Well, like anything we consume, it’s about convenience, accessibility and cost. (And, during the COVID-19 pandemic, safety.)
Long before worship went remote because of COVID-19, Hindus have used online portals to purchase rituals and pujas to be performed in their names. Websites providing this service have proliferated since the late 1990s. While members of the Hindu diaspora are accustomed to paying priests to perform rites in family temples or other favorable sacred sites they can no longer frequent, most online rituals are commissioned by devotees located in India. Today there are hundreds of sites, all offering subscriptions, group rates and live and recorded options — as one might expect from any product website — with some sites dedicated to furnishing rites in designated temples, connecting various Hindu communities with specific sacred spaces and Deities.
Read more at ‘source”.
https://religionnews.com/2021/10/28/digitizing-sacred-spaces-how-covid-19-has-fueled
-innovation-of-hindu-ritual-websites/