Monkey see, Monkey do?

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Monkey got props for his actions, too. (Thanks, bl00t!) A simian devotee of Shiva showed up bright and early in Orissa the other day:

Said Aniruddha Behera, a village resident: “The monkey folded his hands, observed silence, put vermilion on his forehead and also took the prasad from the devotees.”
“When we saw the monkey joining us we were surprised. We did not try to drive it out and it continued praying for nearly an hour amid hundreds of devotees,” Behera told IANS.

Villagers from Junia, Balasore district placed a garland on the spiritual simian before he left for a forest. Apparently the monkey was not familiar to those who witnessed the surprising scene, which went down on the day that a symbol for Shiva was being “formally inaugurat(ed)”.

“We have not seen any monkey around for the last two years. This is a miracle for us,” Behera said.

Over forty years ago, my mom’s family in Kerala had a parrot that famously prayed with everyone every day; in fact, if “evening prayers” didn’t commence exactly on time, the much-loved bird would chide my heathen mother and sonorously begin them for her. Yeah, I love stories like this.

5 thoughts on “Monkey see, Monkey do?”

  1. Explanation 1: Its a trained monkey which escaped from the clutches of its evil owner and is smart enough to do what is required to score some prasad from the other devotees( me thinks temple prasad is YUMMMYYY)

    Explanation 2: The devotees had too much Bhang(also called cannabis) and were hallucinating.

    Explanation 3: The monkey must have been a Shiva devotee in its previous incarnation.