Ayodhya Ram temple is magnificent, but pray, where have all our small temples gone?
by Arun Ram
in Chennai Talkies, India, TOI
The Ram temple that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate on January 22 is a magnificent structure. The three-storey 57,000sqft temple on 2.7 acres built in the nagara style stands at 161ft on 132 columns. Six smaller temples complete the complex that has 12 gates. I am not a regular temple-goer, but I look forward to visiting the Ayodhya temple as much for its religious grandeur as for its political history. But if I have to visit a temple for some inner peace, I would go to a quiet village temple.
I believe we don’t need temples to be spiritual (though many get a spiritual boost in these environs). We build temples for broadly two reasons. One, for a sense of solace and security (the quaint ones in villages). Two, to make a statement (Raja Raja Chola got the awe-inspiring Big Temple built to proclaim his might, his son Rajendra Chola had the Gangaikondacholapuram temple done to show his love for architectural acumen). The Ram temple at Ayodhya is a statement louder than the shouts of “Jai Sri Ram!”
While being dispassionate about big temples sprouting all over the country, I am sad over old, small temples being ‘upscaled’. In the name of renovation, we deface their beauty and defile their sanctity. Old stone-and-wood structures are pulled down to put up concrete sanctums in an ugly show of misplaced pride. When we can’t do that, we splash garish paints on gopurams that our forefathers so meticulously sculpted out of rocks from the heart of earth. It’s an injury to our heritage, an insult to their creators.
Nostalgia: My ancestral home in Thiruvananthapuram is called Amman Kovil Veedu, synonymous with the adjacent temple, a tiny sanctum sanctorum on an open ground with many trees including a grandmother banyan tree whose age nobody could ascertain. When the temple bells rang for the ‘deeparadhana’ at dusk, we would run to the temple. I don’t remember what I prayed; but etched in my memory – and taste buds – are the dollops of thick, piping hot payasam the temple priest served as ‘prasadam’ on banyan leaves.
While big temples such as the Ayodhya Ram temple are sprouting across the country, smaller temples and ‘kavus’ in Kerala are in peril
Today, the banyan tree is gone, and the temple is a big pot-shaped concrete structure sitting on a cement floor. The oil lamps on the ‘chuttambalam’ have been replaced with neon lamps. The ‘deeparadhana’ bells are drowned by the allegedly devotional songs that blare out of loudspeakers. Adding to the cacophony are the prayer calls from the nearby mosques that have risen in decibel levels. Our worship has become a shouting match that harms our body and soul. The noise pollution is but one of the hazards. These modern places of worship are also gnawing at the roots of our ecology and environment.
The ‘kavus’, the sacred groves of Kerala, have virtually disappeared. The ‘sarpa kavu’ (snake groves) were a natural way of protecting – through worship – habitats of snakes in close proximity to homes without a human-reptile conflict. The sacred groves were miniature forests with flourishing flora and fauna protected by the community. Today, they have given way to ‘kalyana mandapams’ that temple managements have built to cash in on big, fat weddings. Environment degradation is often followed by cultural decay. So, with the disappearing ‘kavus’, associated art forms like ‘theyyam’ are marching out of our villages.
The race to build bigger abodes for the gods is on, and it’s not just between religions, but between sects of the same religion too. The might of Christ is often measured by the height of the church spire. The Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation is planning a ‘first of its kind in India’ five-minar mosque in Ayodhya. But all may not be lost for some of us who seek spiritual serenity. Somewhere in an obscure nook of some rural heartland, someone might still be lighting an oil wick to a village deity with a silent prayer: God, save the temples of our souls!
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