Ganesh said that he gave the deity whatever money he could spare,
which was sometimes as little as one rupee—roughly two cents. Everything in the temple, Ganesh said, came
from devotees like him, and he added, “So of course it belongs to God!”.
Wouldn’t it be a good thing, I asked if the deity’s wealth were used
to help people? By that logic, Ganesh
said, valuable objects should also be removed from churches and mosques. Moreover, he insisted, the money would not “reach
the right hands.”
…
“If the government takes hold of the temple’s wealth, they will loot
it,” Ganesh concluded.
—Halpern,
Jake. April 30, 2012. “The Secret of the Temple.” The New
Yorker.
