Introduction

What is the place of the Deity in a Hindu temple? Have you ever wondered what the deity means to you?

I hadn’t until I looked into the arbitrary occupation of Hindu temples by the secular State. In the process, I found that Hindus have a variety of attitudes towards who should be the custodians of the temples, and that is because they have a variety of unsubstantiated opinions about the nature of the ‘deity’, which clouds their judgment of the temple related matters and their attitudes towards the Archakas.

Some of these opinions, even from well-intentioned Hindus, betray a shocking ignorance, which could be as dangerous to Hindu Dharma as the insidious designs of our civilizational enemies who seek to destroy our Kaffir/Heathen faith entirely. These opinions from those who self-identify as Hindus, but lack the necessary grounding in the Hindu religion, do not bode well for the temples and are a sign of the dilapidated state of the Hindu faith in practice today.

Just as the media’s coverage on Godhra-Gujarat revealed the skewed and rotten nature of mainstream narrative about Hindus and Hinduism, the attack on Sabarimala customs revealed the bigoted societal attitude towards deities, temples and pujaris.

A personal note

I do not consider myself a traditionalist, and my practise of any tradition is patchy at best. My reservations about any type of social engineering, which invariably tramples on people’s liberty and agency, lead me to defend traditions. Even when ‘reform’ is carried out with the best of intentions, it still can be incredibly detrimental.

Any existing system should be tampered with only if there are compelling reasons to do so. The following are valid questions to ask regarding a tradition:

• Is it abusive or a threat to public health, safety etc.?
• Is it a monopoly, where the resource, service or product is not available via other means?
• Has degradation of resource, service or product set in because the tradition is unable to sustain?

There could also be other factors like:

• Proportionality: Is the target of the intervention, the ‘dominant’ cause of the issue or not? 

Cases of “reforming” non-dominant practices include the prohibition of Pashu Bali, despite the fact that animals are bred and killed; meat exported on an industrial scale. Deterring once-a-year celebrations like Holi/Deepavali alleging pollution, while remaining indifferent to massive causes of daily pollution from a variety of hedonistic activities. This is functionally equivalent to police arresting the bride’s entourage for stealing the groom’s footwear for ransom as part of “Joota Chori” in weddings, but being incompetent in the face of actual burglary and corruption.

If the above-mentioned conditions are met, a temporary outside intervention to fix the dysfunctional situation is acceptable. And that is what the constitution empowers the state to do, viz, if there’s mismanagement, temporarily step in, resolve, and walk out. But, like the camel brought into the tent, the state is unwilling to leave, and worse mismanagement has become its theme.

It is basic libertarianism that motivates me to defend traditions in the context of Hindu temples against unneeded, unwelcome, disproportional, and non-organic “reform”. In keeping with the libertarian ethos, I may not personally subscribe to many of the things I defend. But unless each such freedom is defended, tomorrow if and when my own freedoms and traditions are assailed, I would be in no position to ask and expect solidarity from others. Considering the onslaught of Islam, Christianity, pseudo-secularism, liberalism, judicial overreach, socialism, institutional corruption, mass apathy and now attempts to Protestantinize by new-age Hindu/Hindutva movements and neo-Gurus etc., Hindu traditions are indeed at a disadvantageous position and must be defended. We should also not play favourites; an unwarranted, disproportionate interference by admired figures, such as Modi, Shankaracharya, or Jaggi Vasudev, can still be a destructive intrusion and should be resisted.

The counterargument is that no tradition is immutable. But then if traditions are whimsically tampered with then they cease to be ‘traditions’. So, attempts behind reforming a tradition must pass the test of questions posed above and then the extent of the success of the attempt is Ishwara Sankalpa.

Intellectual honesty compelled me to ask myself, “If People are attacking the temple traditions, with their understanding stemming from a protestant-reformist worldview, is it enough for me to defend the traditions from a purely libertarian perspective, not understanding what I seek to defend, but merely taking them for granted as ‘tradition’?”

So started my conscious exploration of what does the deity mean to me as a Hindu? What is the purpose of temples? Where do Pujaris figure in this scheme?

D-Scale of Dharma

The exploration led me to construct the ‘D-scale of Dharma’, where the attitude towards the ‘Deity’ indicates what sort of Hindu a person is. Deities are:

1. DEMONS, False gods etc.: Based on their belief systems, Christians and Muslims take this stance. Even if they do not act out their intentions towards the deities and temples today, their violent past is well-documented. Ideally, this scale should not at all have this level, but in the secular state, people who hold such attitudes towards the deities, are part of the government and actually have participation and some control over different temples. HR&CE like departments lease temple properties to such people, and they conduct meetings there, calling the same deity as Demons. Like being forced to rent a room in your home to someone who delights in abusing you every day. In Tirupathi, they were found to be employees of the state, involved in ru(i)nning the temple.
2. DOLLS: This level denotes people who consider the deity to be an inanimate representation for childish play-acting i.e. a toy, a doll. This deplorable attitude is explored further down in the article. Jaya Jaitly famously said, “But in a temple, constructed by man to enclose an inanimate stone or metal representation of that idea, to preclude women of certain ages from entering because it hampers the deities’ practice of celibacy, is to carry the idea beyond belief into the realm of childish play-acting.”
3. DECORATIVE piece: Many museums have a central attraction. For example, the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. And almost everybody who visits the Louvre has to get a peek at Mona Lisa, never mind whether they have an appreciation or even like that piece of art. There are Hindus who think the Pradhana Devata is akin to the central attraction of the museum that is a temple. Whatever other things you do in the temple, have belief or not, have an appreciation of it or not, you have to see the central attraction.
4. DEVICE: Scientific device: If previous generations had a hankering for ‘miracles’, the contemporary generation needs everything explained with some scientific terms thrown in. Even if the explanation fails the most basic condition of science – that it be objectively measurable – as long as it sounds scientifically correct, that is sufficient. Absolutely ridiculous assertions like invisible waves, for example, swirl around the internet, and some of these absurdities are uttered by popular Neo-Gurus to coddle their ‘millennial’ followership, who are intoxicated on this Scienc-y Sauce. Representational device: It is just a representation of the ONE and SAME God. This is an Abrahamic-Accommodation that I refer to as Taqqiyography – Narratives by Hindus that aim to force-fit Hindu ideas to Islamic or Christian sensibilities. Even ignoring the ONE God part, the deity is regarded as something akin to a photo of a deceased grandfather, deserving of respect. The deity established through prana-pratishtha is a photo of the divine in the same way that a battery torchlight is a photo of electricity.
5. DIRECTIONAL signpost: And then there are Vapid-Vedantins who think that the deity is some ornamental signpost that points them towards their philosophical Brahman.
6. DIVINE presence: Finally, there are devotees who believe that the divine is present in the deity in a specific form, to be worshipped in particular ways, even if the divine pervades the entire cosmos and does not require scientific, philosophical, or aesthetic reasoning.

While we can all have a mix of these beliefs when it comes to decisions regarding a temple, which is the deity’s abode, the foremost opinion that matters is that of the last set of people – those who believe in the Divine presence inherently. Others who do not believe in the divine presence have no say in temple matters. Isn’t it simple?

Many Hindu temples have a founding story – a Sthala purana – that involves a special divine act in that site or that of a great devotee – Yogi, Sadhu, Swami, Yati, etc., where the devotees then request the divine to stay there and grace the people over generations, over yugas. The divine grants the request and manifests itself in the form of the deity, which could be Swayambhu (self manifesting) or archa/mantra murthy, as established by agamas and prana prathista. When the divine agrees to remain in the care of the devotees, various traditions unique to the deity are formed.

Sabarimala’s Naishtika Brahmachari Shasta has a special requirement that he be exempted from the worship by fertile ladies there. This rule does not apply to other Shastas in other temples.

Mahavishnu appeared to Markandey Rishi to marry Lakshmi, whom the rishi had raised. Rishi expressed concern, saying, “My daughter does not even know how to cook with proper salt.” Vishnu responded, “Even if she cooks with no salt, I will still espouse her.” As a result, the tradition was established, and to this day, the neivedya/bhog presented is saltless, hence why the temple is known as “Uppu-illaa-appan” (Salt-less) temple (It is also Oppu-illaa-appan, meaning peerless). That saltless bhog is unique to that deity.

Do such legends require scientific, philosophical, or artistic justifications, or are they just matters of faith? Should modern moral standards be used to destroy practices that do no damage but are evocative of believers’ beliefs? Should the Oppiliappan temple be reformed, since the bhog discriminates against people with low blood pressure?

Unfortunately, such disfiguring acts are still committed today under the pretext of a slew of modern moral concerns such as feminism, secularism, equality, and ecology.

Even Hindu-friendly organizations want to ‘collectivize’ this diversity and reform the traditions for their own agendas. They fail to recognize that each such tradition is highly specific to the temple. All of this stems from people’s and powers-that-be’s toward the deity.

Those who describe deities as demons are, of course, the avowed adversaries of this culture and tradition. But are those who consider them as Dolls in childish play-acting any better? How far are they from what Bishop Reginald Heber sang?

“Though every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile;
In vain with lavish kindness
The gifts of God are strown;
The heathen, in his blindness,
Bows down to wood and stone.”

When Islam invaded and Christianity colonised, our forefathers died defending the same ‘toys’. Take, for example, the ‘toy’ at Sri Rangam and the years they spent in the wild to defend the deity while being hounded by Islam’s iconoclasts. How many stories like this have been written in blood? Throughout the land of Bharatvarsha, we childishly reenact the triumph of Dharma over Adharma. Thousands of such reenactments happen every day, every month and every year. Rath Yatras, Vedupari, Shivalaya Ottam, Pandharpur Waris, Kanwar Yatras – so many such childish play-acting, all over the Rashtra.

Has not this civilization been sustained by such childish play-acting, when every one of the ancient civilizations has succumbed to the monotheistic invasions or to the nihilism of socialistic narratives? Every reenactment revitalises and repairs the civilization’s shoreline, which is being eroded by hostile forces.

However, there is a subset of Hindus who should be called HINOs (Hindus in Name Only) who traduce all this as “an inanimate stone/metal representation.” From the pulpit, these HINOs squeal that the deity is only symbolic. They misrepresent the notion of the divine in Hinduism for Abrahamic Accommodation or Socialistic Sanitizing; yet they are the representatives of Hindus as politicians, judiciary, influencers, who control the temples. This secularisation of Hinduism is merely the first step toward converting them to monotheistic/monopolistic cults.

I am reminded of Bill Watterson (creator of Calvin & Hobbes) specifically addressing the issue of Hobbes as a stuffed toy versus a living, breathing tiger:

“The so-called “gimmick” of my strip — the two versions of Hobbes — is sometimes misunderstood. I don’t think of Hobbes as a doll that miraculously comes to life when Calvin’s around. Neither do I think of Hobbes as the product of Calvin’s imagination. The nature of Hobbes’s reality doesn’t interest me, and each story goes out of its way to avoid resolving the issue. Calvin sees Hobbes one way, and everyone else sees Hobbes another way. I show two versions of reality, and each makes complete sense of the participant who sees it. I think that’s how life works. None of us sees the world in exactly the same way, and I just draw that literally in the strip. Hobbes is more about the subjective nature of reality than about dolls coming to life.”

So it is fine if you think that the deity is a demon, doll, decoration, device or direction, but have the decency to ‘stay out the way’ of those who feel it is divine. When it comes to Hobbes, only Calvin’s subjective reality matters; everyone else’s is irrelevant. Similarly, when it comes to the deity and temples, it is the subjective conviction of the faithful that matters, not of others on the D-Scale.

However, in India, people who instinctively believe in the divine presence in specific ways in the deity, to be cherished by certain ways, by specific traditions in a continuous chain of many generations, have the least say in temple operations.

Others can go complaining to the judges or authorities. Shouldn’t the wise judges tell the plaintiff, if it is only play-acting to you, go play elsewhere? But no, the SeculAcharyas of the Supreme Court have no such sagacity. They are HINOs and Buddhi-hino as well.

It is likely that these sentiments are the result of utter ignorance rather than evil intent. But shouldn’t they be attentive and cautious with everything they don’t understand?

Many Hindus are proud of their magnificent temples and want to preserve them; unfortunately, they have little understanding or appreciation of the old fragile traditions associated with temples and are hellbent on reforming rather than restoring or reinforcing them. That, too, indicates that they do not perceive the deity’s presence as divine but rather as something else.

On objects like vessels, over time sediments accrete and coat the surface. The process of removing the accretions and restoring the shine is known as ‘descaling.’ Similarly with Deities, over time sentiments and fallacies have formed a layer over our beliefs. This D-Scale can be used to analyse and cleanse our attitudes toward the deities.