In one village there lived a young man named Podo. In this village there was an old dilapidated temple. The statue of the god that was previously worshiped had disappeared and it was now the home of the bats.
One night, the villagers were amazed to hear the sounds of bells, gongs and shells coming from the abandoned temple. Men, women and children all ran there. They thought that someone had brought a new image of God to the temple and was performing the evening service, lighting fires, bringing flowers, fruits and holy water. With folded hands, everyone stood at the door of the temple, listening in reverence to the sounds coming from there. One of them, more curious than the others, decided to look inside. To his surprise, he saw Podo there, ringing the bells and blowing the conch shell, but the floor was as dirty as before, and there was no image of the god on the altar. The newcomer shouted:
- Oh Podo! After all, there is no Madhava (God incarnate) in the temple. Why did you make all this noise by blowing the conch shell? Look, you didn’t even bother to clean the temple, remove the dirt and wash the floor with the holy water of the Ganges!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru