Author: Sandeep Balakrishna
Publication: India Facts
Date: June 17, 2015
URL: http://indiafacts.co.in/reviving-the-hindu-temple-ecosystem/

The Temple Culture indeed produced superior human resources required to sustain not just these endeavours but, indirectly, a kingdom itself.

How often have we heard this refrain or its variants: I don’t go to temples. I don’t like going to temples…I mean, there’s no point…all that noise, meaningless mantras and rituals… so unhygienic…I don’t believe in God, I’m not religious but I’m spiritual…after all, Hinduism is a personal religion and I don’t really need to go to a temple to pray….?

And how often have we ourselves uttered this refrain?

Admittedly, there’s a grain of truth in each of these utterances. First the practical, physical aspects:There’s no dearth of temples that are dirty and unhygienic, have unruly crowds, and appear meaningless and chaotic to everybody except the most devout howsoever much such devotion as a value in itself is commendable. Temple priests are less than honest and less than learned.

On the other side, most Hindus have tragically reduced temple-going to a base activity that comprises one or several or all of these: bribing the Deity as a means of expiating individual sins—the most devout-looking devotees are your bribe-seeking bureaucrats who in turn bribe God; as ameans to cure ailments; as a quest to get a bride/groom/child…in short, a reduction to mere materialism. Of course, not all of these are objectionable or wrong per se. However, they are far inferior to those people who visit temples as an end in itself. These are few and their numbers are ever-dwindling.

But what seems incredible is the fact that such criticisms have, far from diluting the fervour, only given birth to newer and newer temples. Indeed, Hindus have historically been prolific temple builders, an inherited cultural trait that continues unabated till date.

It is no secret that even the most Committed Secularist Minister has donated money to and/or is a temple trustee. That then is the key: it is an inherited cultural trait on which centuries of alien invasions and the current venom of secularism have failed make even an inch of dent. However, as things currently stand, this trait is admirable but it’s nothing to really celebrate because we’ve just retained the form, not the spirit.

To be blunt, majority of those who utter such lofty-sounding nothings—I’m not religious but spiritual, etc—base their criticism about temple-going on ignorance. This applies in equal measure to those who are genuinely proud of Hinduism and to what I call the Lamenting Hindus: those who see their revered Sanatana Dharma in a state of terminal decline but are unable to do anything to halt the decline.

This also definitely applies to those Hindus who learn their Hinduism either from the Western Curators of Museum Hinduism or from the New Age Management Guru variety who’ve suddenly discovered their Hindu roots. However, this most certainly applies to those who pontificate that Hinduism=only its rich philosophy and similar ill-informed bunkum that actually does injustice to Hinduism.

These last categories of Hinduism experts are fit to be consigned to the dustbin simply because their extraordinary self-righteousness that they know everything there is to Sanatana Dharma is only matched by their arrogant disdain for those who know better.

And so, the answer to the Lamenting Hindus is this: a well-thought out revival of the ancient and medieval Temple Culture is one of the major keys to revive and rejuvenate Sanatana Dharma itself.

If the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Dharmashastras provided the philosophical, moral, ethicaland societal foundation and the Epics (Itihasa) and Puranas, the rich literary framework to sustain this foundation, it was the Temple Culture that spawned, incubated, nurtured, sustained, and spread Sanatana Dharma’s cultural and social milieu from time immemorial.

The origins of the Temple Culture date back to the Vedic concept and practice of Yajna. The word Yajna is incorrectly translated as “sacrifice” while in both spirit and practice, it was an elaborate ritual of sharing—a ritual where all communities and strata of society came together and offered their material and non-material services for the welfare of the entire country. It was an act of strengthening human, social and national bonds on an epic scale. A Yajna was how the entire nation renewed its vows to itself.

A Yajna wasn’t simply one monolithic ritual that went on for a specified number of days where some people chanted mantras while the rest just looked on. Music, dance, poetry, and the arts were inseparable elements of every Yajna. Indeed, Yajna is the root of pretty much all forms of pujas and other rituals that Hindus perform today. The priest who calls upon people to sing towards the end of say, the SatyanarayanaPuja, is simply continuing the same practice that was followed in Yajnas conducted thousands of years ago.

As the Vedic culture evolved and gave us the concept of murtipuja (incorrectly translated as “idol worship”), Yajna gradually found an organic expression in the form of the Temple Culture. A temple in spirit wasn’t just a place for people to worship and return home: it was simultaneously the centre of education,the hub of the community and the city, the home of the performing and literary arts, and the platform for free and fair social and political discussions and debates.

The plan, design, and structure of almost all classical and medieval temples was well-defined, scientific and followed the rules of Indian architecture laid down in the Shilpa Shastra texts. A visit to any of these still-surviving temples makes it clear that areas are earmarked for specific purposes: dormitories for pilgrims, halls for debates and allied activities, a Yajna shala, a NatyaShala, the water tank, platforms for students to take their lessons…the actual temple itself forms a small part of this grand architectural scheme. In a way, Varanasi is one massive temple that houses hundreds of mini-temples within its walls.

Perhaps the greatest contribution of the Temple Culture is in the field of our classical performing arts. Indian classical music and dance primarily evolved from and were refined over hundreds of years in the confines of thousands of temples all over the sacred geography of India.

It is a truism in the realm of Indian classical performing arts that the performing art dies when its last practitioner dies without leaving behind a successor. No amount of notations or theoretical texts will substitute the guru-shishya tradition that alone sustains our classical performing arts. It is the Temple Culture that sustained this guru-shishya tradition by granting the guru the material prosperity and social respect to perpetuate his/her art for posterity.

The Temple Culture indeed produced superior human resources required to sustain not just these endeavours but, indirectly, a kingdom itself. It produced ministers, advisors, strategists, artisans, and teachers. Those who unthinkingly call Madurai, Rameshwaram, Tanjavur, etc merely as “temple towns” need to re-examine their statement in this light. It’s therefore unsurprising that almost all kings gave such large grants to temples and didn’t normally dip into temple wealth for political uses. These grants, donations and offerings once made became Devaswa—Property of the Deity.

Therefore, when a temple was destroyed, it also simultaneously destroyed every cultural facet of that kingdom. Notice the fact that today, very little of the classical tradition has survived in North India. This is the direct consequence of repeated and large-scale temple destructions by Mohammedan invaders and the long spell of Mughal rule, which prevented Hindus from building new temples and from renovating or restoring existing ones. As far as the South is concerned, we see this phenomenon most prominently in Goa, whose original name is Gomantaka. Few temples have survived there and the classical tradition is almost non-existent.

Under Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the Temple Culture was systematically relegated to the dustbin with a really simple device—by putting temples directly under Government control as part of his poisonous project of de-Hinduizing India. This sinister projectproved even more malevolent because while it didn’t physically destroy temples, it ensured the same cultural outcome—the outcome which makes even staunch Hindus wear their non-temple-going as a badge of pride.

And then these selfsame Hindus wonder why classical music concerts and dance performances get no sponsorship. And they also wonder why our native languages and literature are dying out. And they wonder still, why we don’t build such grand, artistic and awe-inspiring temples anymore.