Madras High Court stays Art of Living’s event at UNESCO sight

The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court Friday stayed the two-day event of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living at Brihadisvara temple in Tamil Nadu’s Thanjavur district. The event was proposed to begin from today.

The temple is a UNESCO World Heritage site where private functions are prohibited.

The event had triggered a row over the initial permission granted by the Archeological Survey of India to hold it in the temple premises. According to The Hindu, the event called ‘Unveiling Infinity’ is expected to draw 2,000 followers to be accommodated in a makeshift pandal made of iron rods in the temple lawn.

Another of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s three-day event called the ‘World Cultural Festival’ held in March 2016 invited the wrath of environmentalists and the National Green Tribunal which ruled the festival was “responsible” for “causing damage and environmental degradation” to the Yamuna floodplains.