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WHY
do I visit temples wherever I go? It is a habit instilled in me,
unconsciously, perhaps, by my father. My earliest memory of a visit to
a temple was when I accompanied him to the Sri Padmanabha Swami temple
in Thiruvananthapuram.
It was a majestic temple, a specimen of the best in Kerala architecture. But we could admire it only from the outside as admission was barred to "non-Hindus". "Father, how will they know that we are not Hindus?" My innocent question evoked an instant reply, "They will not know but God will and He will not like us to break the traditions of the temple". Little did he know that he had set a golden rule for me, which I would never break under any circumstances. When my close friend Parameshwaran Unni insisted that I accompany him to the Parthasarathi temple at Aranmula on the banks of the sacred Pampa, where the yearly snake boat race attracts thousands of tourists from all over the world, I remembered my father’s sane advice. I, therefore, preferred to climb up to the roof of a nearby building to have a look at the magnificent temple. The golden flagpole at the centre of a sprawling courtyard was all I could see from that position but the grandness of the whole edifice on an elevated ground was at once clear to me. ‘Awestruck’ was the word that could describe my state of mind when I visited the Meenakshi temple at Madurai as a toddler, clutching at my father’s thumb. The huge gopurams (gates) with intricate carvings of gods and goddesses, of scenes from the Puranic traditions, the gargantuan kalyana mandapam and the pillars that produced musical sounds on gently tapping them all transported me to a surrealist world. Our village temple was a study in contrast. Situated in an island around which flows the Achenkovil, a tributary of the Pampa, it attracted few worshippers except during religiously important days. Once the scion of the Brahmin family, which controlled the temple, told me how difficult it was to meet the daily needs of the temple with little falling in the temple coffers. As was my wont, I would wait after the morning bath in the river for my friend Sukumaran Nair to go to the temple to bring for us some sandalwood paste to apply on our foreheads and prasadam, made of rice and jaggery. My day was not made until I had these essentials before I left for the school. Nobody ever asked me why I, a Christian, wore the sandalwood paste, which has a great cooling effect on the body. Those days secularism
had not arrived in our village and my parents had not looked askance
when I was made to sit in front of the teacher and, with his help, I
first wrote on a plate of uncooked rice, Hari Sri Ganapataye Nama.
Our neighbour Panicker, who was a lame and bachelor, would every year go on a pilgrimage to the Palani temple. The pilgrims are allowed to beg on the way. They can spend the money on themselves during the journey but not save it for a rainy day. Panicker never set out for his yearly journey without taking alms from my grandfather, which he considered a good omen. Whenever grandpa checked with him about rumours in the village that he had a wife somewhere and his yearly visits to her were in the guise of pilgrimage, he would just smile. Recently, when I visited this temple, I remembered Panicker, who passed away, and his "wife" who lived, perhaps only, in the grapevine. Panicker was not alone. Another villager, Raghavan Nair, who was a great devotee of Lord Ayyapa, would always take some money from grandpa for his visit to the Ayyapa temple at Sabarimala on the Western Ghats. Those days pilgrimage to Sabarimala entailed great risks. Stories of falling prey to wild animals were not all figments of the imagination. In return, Nair, who had earned the reputation of a Periya Swam – anybody who has visited Sabarimala several times becomes one—would bring delicious prasadam, which we all partook of with great delight. In his day, Ayyapa was a secularist. His bosom friend was Vavar, a Muslim. Traditionalist pilgrims first worship at Vavar’s mosque at Erumeli before they trek to Sabarimala. Anybody – Hindu, Christian or Muslim—can visit the temple provided he takes certain vows. Since I had not taken the vows, I thought it prudent not to climb the sacred 18 steps that led to the Lord. The journey through the jungles chanting "Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa" is an out-of-the-world experience. Small wonder that the believers continue to visit the temple year after year despite all the discomforts the journey entails. Faith can move mountains. I saw it happen at the Jagannath temple at Puri. The journey from Bhubaneswar to Puri on the pillion of a motorcycle was uncomfortable. When we reached there after spending a few minutes at the beach at Puri, there was a sea of humanity waiting to see the procession of the Lord. My friend helped me reach the temple where a signboard barring entry of non-Hindus stared me in the face. "Nobody will recognise you", comforted my friend, who knew a lot about the temple, about which Claudius Buchanan wrote a controversial treatise in the 19th century. "There is a plaque in the temple premises which acknowledges with gratitude the contribution of a British visitor who raised a huge sum of money for its renovation". Christians could, therefore, visit the temple, he argued. I remembered my father’s advice and joined the crowd to see thousands of people pulling Jagannath’s rath on its yearly journey down the Lord’s great path. I have not seen the plaque my friend referred to but once I got a letter of thanks from a temple for writing about it in The Hindustan Times. This temple at Ochira in Kerala is unique. It is a templeless temple. It is, perhaps, one of the few temples dedicated to Parabrahmam, which is formless. Prabrahmam is believed to exist under a huge banyan tree in the temple premises, which people worship. People dedicate bulls to this temple, which are later given away to the needy poor, who can take them around and seek alms for a living. The sprawling compound is also home to hundreds of itinerant poor, who live on the munificence of the faithful. Temples are all about beliefs. One such belief in vogue in Guwahati is that any visitor to the city who has not gone to the Kamakhya temple, atop a hill, which provides a panoramic view of the meandering Brahmaputra, is bound to visit the town again and again. And when my friend and Assamese writer Dileep Chandan was more than willing to drive me to the place, I could not resist the temptation. Far more difficult was the visit to the Shankaracharya temple in Srinagar, which is the highest point in the city. Vehicles are not allowed beyond a point. The temple, which is believed to have a Semitic link by those who claim that Jesus lived in Kashmir, is modest but it provides a breathtaking view of the Valley. Every temple has something unique about it. If it is the gate of the Thiruchendur temple, which makes it stand out, it is the corridor of the Rameshwaram temple, whose priest was a friend of President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s father. Walking on the longest temple corridor, it was exciting to hear from the guide about the temple’s connection with the Royal House of Nepal—how the then Queen, unaccompanied, visited the temple when she got a dream and took bath in all the eight wells in the temple before she bowed before the presiding deity in all her natural glory. The god-is-in-you concept is exemplified in the temple set up by Sri Narayana Guru where in the sanctum sanctorum is a mirror, where when you worship, you see your own image. The day I went to the Guru’s temple at Varkala, it was so crowded that I wished I had visited it on an ordinary day. In terms of sheer size and grandeur, few can beat the Thanjavur temple, which also houses the biggest Nandi, which I look forward to visiting a third time. Compared to the hours I had to stand in a queue to visit the Tirupati temple (where for every Rs 50 coupon you get an elephantine laddu), a visit to the famous Kali temple at Kolkata was quicker. Ever heard about scenes from the Bible depicted on the walls of a temple? That is what I found at the Birla temple at Jaipur, which is, therefore, quite distinct from other Birla temples I visited at Patna, Bhopal and New Delhi. When it comes to ecumenism, nothing can beat the Lotus temple in New Delhi, where you can pray to the gods of your choice. But the most enchanting place I found for prayer is the prayer room at the Swami Vivekananda memorial at the confluence of the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea at Kanyakumari. The newest attraction in Delhi on the religious circuit is the Akshardham temple on the banks of the Yamuna. Entry to it was possible only after standing in a long queue and frisking by yellow-clad swamis. Security has now become a major consideration for temples, particularly at Varanasi and Mathura, where mosques co-exist with temples. If a church at Kurukshetra is modelled after the chariot driven by Lord Krishna, the most famous temple in Goa resembles a church in the sense it allows a large number of people to worship together. On the Delhi-Ambala highway, I saw two Shani temples, which are distinct for the liberal use of black. There is a black entrance and balck flags etc. They are nothing compared to the most famous Shani temple, the Sri Kalahasthi temple in Andhra Pradesh. Built of solid rocks, you marvel at the technology used those days to put them together to build the grand structure. How could that giant piece of rock be taken up to build the Konark temple? "They waited for the high tide to lift it up", explained the guide, though unconvincingly. I wondered whether even Tsunami could have lifted up that rock. It is not size or architecture alone that lends greatness to a temple. I realised this when I visited the tiny Tara temple at Mahishi, the land of Mandan Mishra, a contemporary of Adi Sankara, which traces its origin to Vashisht Muni, who is believed to have mentored Lord Ram. "Come inside", insisted the village elders, all of whom were Brahmins who knew that I was a Christian. It was difficult to resist them, particularly when the clincher was, "You are from the land of Adi Sankara". That rekindled my
unfulfilled desire to visit the temple at Kaladi where Sankara was
born. There are more wishes to be fulfilled like a trip to the Vaishno
Devi temple in Jammu and a visit to the Takht Sri Hazoor Sahib at
Nanded in Maharashtra to complete the visit of all the five Takhts of
the Sikhs. As regards churches, Buddhist shrines and mosques, that is
another story for another day! |
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