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Out of the approximately 9Lakh temples across India, around 4Lakh are controlled by the State Governments. “The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HRCE) Act 1951”,allowed the state governments to take over temples and maintain complete control over them and their properties. However, no such control exists over Muslim and Christian religious bodies. This is the secular character of our governments.

Some 15 state governments exercise complete control over only Hindu religious institutions, appoint their administrators and even collect 13-18% service charge. This violates not only the very concept of secularism but is also against the constitution which does not permit States to run religious institutions.

Historical Background

In our known tradition of some 15,000 years, the temples played a crucial part in maintaining a self-sustained communities. The temples established a dominant image of the locality and its society. Hindu temples were designed to discharge several functions: they were fortresses, land holders, employers, treasuries, court houses, parks, fairs, exhibition sheds, the halls of learning and of amusement, the consumer of goods and services, as banks, schools, museums , hospitals and theaters. Most of the activities centered round the village temple.

The temples had a separate group who were in charge of their managements; but these authorities were subject to the double control of the local assemblies who exercises a general supervision and of the officer of the king who audited the accounts. The temple was the center of all the institutions, popular culture and amusements. Music and dancing, and theatrical presentation of popular tales and legends, formed part of the ordinary routine works of the temple and received special attention on festive occasions. And natakasalas were specially constructed for this purpose.

The temple accounts were supervised and the temples themselves managed very professionally by the people of the community. Manradi, the in charge of the office of Manrattu was made responsible for executing repairs in the temple and was in charge of collecting the income due to the temples.

The construction and maintenance of temples provided employment to the planners, architects, artisans, sculptors, decorators and laborers. There were complex routines in each temple sustained by the rich accumulations in land and gold, the result of pious gifts, offered with a generosity by the community and administered with utmost care.

Religious and musical discourses have helped the propagation of religion, music, dance, and other arts which received great encouragement and provided pure and elevating type of entertainment to the devotees.

Being a centre of learning, the temple helped in the acquisition and propagation of knowledge. Both scholars and students found shelter there. With its enormous wealth, it also acted as a bank to the needy, giving easy credits. It brought the people into more and more intimate business relations with the neighborhood.

The granaries of the temple helped to the hungry, and those unable to earn their livelihood due to disease and deformity. There are several instances of even hospitals and dispensaries being run by the temple. The temple played the role of a court of law for settling disputes. The temple also gave shelter to the people during wars.

The elaborate arrangements made for the management of the affairs of the temple and carefully recorded in the inscriptions on its walls, summed up the best practices of the time in this regard by the rulers and set a model for the future.

In short, temple as a nucleus unit which gathered round it all that was best in the arts of civilized existence and regulated them with humaneness born out of the spirit of dharma. The medieval period temple has few parallels in the annals of mankind.

The Destruction of the Temple Ecosystem by the British

The temples of India functioned in a harmonized social environment devoid of any form of social oppression. The systems ensured this.

The Brahmins functioned as the priests, seekers of enlightenment, maintained sacred knowledge, as well as dispensers of knowledge to the society but did not rule or own wealth.

The Kshatriyas who protected & administered the society did not generally aspire for priesthood nor did they run businesses or farms.

The Vaishiyas who ran businesses, farms and earned wealth did not rule or administer.

The Sudras who were the skilled workers, who also formed the bulk of the society, were not engaged in the running of the society and enjoyed freedom to do their work and live as they pleased.

The Sudras formed about 50% of the population, the Vaishyas about 25%, The Kshatriyas around 20% and the Brahmins around 5%. The Sudras and the Vaishyas contributed to the building and the maintenance of the temples, the Kshatriyas provided the administration and the Brahmins conducted the priestly activities and provided the education to the society.

The British realized that the core of this self sustained society was this fair division of labour and the knowledge imparted to the highly educated society that had a temple and school in every community.They set about systematically breaking the temple based social structure.

In order to finance the World War 1 and 2, they raised the taxes to 55% and created a class of people called Zamindhars who where given blanket powers to extract the tax. They were given land and could confiscate land from the Sudras and Vaishyas if the tax was not paid. The society could not bear the twin atrocity of tax and the tax collector.

The earnings of the people dwindled. There was large scale unemployment. Many of the unemployed were sent to fight the wars of the British, by the active collaboration of some of our well known leader, as well to other British colonies like Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Caribbean to work as indentured labour in the plantations that generated commercial wealth to them. In many parts of India, they forced the farmers to stop traditional crop planting and forced them to grow opium which they sold to China.

The society as we knew it collapsed. In the absence of the support system, the Brahmins had no roles or support, but since they had the knowledge, the British employed them in their businesses as well as in administrative roles. Most of the temples were also looted of their wealth.

Since the country was looted of all its wealth, the majority of the population suffered in poverty. Now, since the Brahmins occupied positions of power, the British pointed the population to the Brahmins as the source of their problems. The evangelists added to the falsehood by offering the general public, another path to gain favour-conversion. This was the scenario when the British left.

After the British - the Marxist/Socialist control of policy

Next, the Marxists controlled the education departments and policies in the Nehru government. They further strengthened this false narrative, laying all the blame on the Brahmins who had no means to fight back. They also cited the temples as the main discriminatory centers falsely accusing the Brahmin priest as the chief discriminator.

Citing these reasons, they engineered the take over of the temples. Thus the temple which even gave free education to the community, employment to many skilled labourers, opportunity to many artists, craftsmen, free food to the community, travelers etc was now defunct in its role in society and mostly functioned for the people to come and offer their prayers and put cash into the Hundis.

The controllers of the temple were primarily interested in the cash collection from the temples, the idols and deities of incalculable value, the general inherited wealth within the temples and the acres of land which came under the temples.

Devoid of faith or even basic interest in Dharma, the blood, sweat and toil of our ancestors, who placed great emphasis in knowledge and the ascension of the human soul, who established these architecturally brilliant energy centers as pinnacles to physically experience these states, was squandered totally, to become looting centers for the people in power.

Devoid of the right education as a result of the secular education system, most Indians are not even knowledgeable of this basic chain of events. Now, thanks to social media, various truths are emerging and we now have account of ...... temples and temple lands encroached etc.

Some famous Hindu temples from across the world

The Brihadishwara Temple, located in Thanjavur, India, was built by the Chola king Rajaraja I in the 11th century. The world’s first complete granite temple, Brihadishwara is a brilliant example of the Dravidian style of temple architecture. The temple tower is 66 meters (216 feet) high making it one of the tallest temples in the world.

Dedicated to Lord Ranganatha (a reclining form of Lord Vishnu), the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple in Srirangam, India is an important shrine that receives millions of visitors and pilgrims every year. With an area of 156 acres (6,31,000 m²), the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple is one of the largest religious complexes in the world. The oldest structure of the temple dates back to the 10th century.

The Virupaksha Temple in the city of Hampi in India started out as a small shrine and grew into a large complex under the Vijayanagara rulers. It is believed that this temple has been functioning uninterruptedly ever since the small shrine was built in the 7th century AD which makes it one of the oldest functioning Hindu temples in India. The largest entrance tower of the temple is 50 meters high.

Prambanan is the largest and most beautiful Hindu temple complex in Indonesia. Located about 18 km east of Yogyakarta, it is somewhat overshadowed by the even more awe-inspiring Borobudur situated just next door. The two sites are quite different in style though, with Prambanan being a collection of tall and pointed Hindu temples, instead of the single large Buddhist stupa of Borobudur. Prambanan has three main temples dedicated to Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva and was built around 850AD by the Mataram Kingdom, rulers of central Java.

The Meenakshi Amman Temple is one of the most important Indian Hindu temples, located in the holy city of Madurai. The temple is dedicated to Sundareswar (form of Lord Shiva) and Meenakshi (form of Goddess Parvati). The complex houses 14 magnificent towers including two golden Gopurams for the main deities, that are elaborately sculptured and painted. The temple is a significant symbol for the Tamil people, and has been mentioned for the last couple of millennia, though the present structure was built in the early 17th century.

Angkor is a vast temple complex in Cambodia featuring the magnificent remains of several capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century AD. These include the famous Angkor Wat temple, the world’s largest single religious monument, and the Bayon temple (at Angkor Thom) with its multitude of massive stone faces. During it’s long history Angkor went through many changes in religion converting between Hinduism to Buddhism several times.

Situated on a large rock, Tanah Lot is one of the most famous Hindu temples in Bali, and probably the most photographed. The Tanah Lot temple has been a part of Balinese mythology for centuries. The temple is one of 7 sea temples, each within eyesight of the next, to form a chain along the south-western coast of Bali.

The City of 1000 Temples, Kanchipuram is one of the oldest cities in South India, and known for its ancient Hindu temples and silk sarees. The city contains several big temples like the Varadharaja Perumal Temple for Lord Vishnu and the Ekambaranatha Temple which is one of the five forms of abodes of Lord Siva.

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