The Multi role of the Temples

During the medieval period, the Hindu temples attained the zenith of their influence on the social life of the country.^[1] It ceased to be a small structure of brick and mortar providing a centre of a simple worship attended by the people. The construction of stone structure had provided employment to the architects, artisans, sculptors and laborers i.e., of much skill and taste in its planning and decoration. With its rise, there also came up a varied and complex routine in each temple sustained by the rich accumulations in land and gold, the result of pious gifts, offered with generosity and administered with very great 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 center 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 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 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 of the spirit of dharma; the medieval period temple has few parallels in the annals of mankind.

Being attracted with the wealth of Kaveri region, the strategic position and the trade routes, Aditya conquered this region. A plate of Sundara Chola states that Aditya built rows of tall stone temples.^[2] The Chola ruler Karikala wanted cure from his dreadful disease to tour the Kaveri region and so built big and small temples.^[3] The system of temple management mentioned in this work ought to be given credit.^[4] A host of temple servants was obviously employed and the whole range of them was described as from ‘Nambi’ to ‘Thiruvalagu’ meaning the priest and the sweeper respectively, the alpha and the omega of temple service.^[5]

A remarkable feature during the ancient and medieval period was that the people who belonged to different religious dominations such as Buddhism, Jainism,, Saivism and Vaishnavism, were found living together in the important urban centers of Tiruchirappalli region. The temple was a powerful social and economic entity besides being a source of religious inspiration for the people. Inscriptions give some idea of the diverse secular functions those temples were designed to discharge.

The inscriptions found in the temple present varied information. The progress of epigraphical research since then has enabled to get a large number of inscriptions which are as varied in their contents as they are copious in their details. In this group one may note all those record facts of a quasi political, judicial, religious and economic character.

The numerous records which register the date of construction of tanks, planting groves, repair of the tanks, wells and sluices and erection of resting places are useful and enable to get an idea of the methods of charity and relief in the country.

The records of visits of kings to the temples are valuable because visits of kings to temples are availed of by the local gentry to apply for grants or leases and the terms of cultivation are specified.

Tiruchirappalli epigraphic records which register the dates of construction of various parts of the temple, planting groves, repair of the tanks, wells and shrines, sales and exchange of lands, donations and endowment agreements among the villagers about the construction of a dam for irrigation (Twelfth Century A.D) agreement among the land holders and trade guilds to make gifts. The above inscriptions help the historian to have a visual of the ancient and medieval period. They provide valuable information about the customs and manners that existed in those days.^[6]

An interesting record at Tiruchirappalli refers to an auction done during those days. This temple priest had a due i.e., not paying the donated amount to the treasury. Unable to repay the amount, he sold his rights to a high price.

The inscriptions which record sales and exchange of land, the bulk of the former class, register donations and endowments made to gods, to priests on behalf of temples and charitable institutions and to religious communities.

Some records gave information about the agreements among merchant communities and trade guilds to make gifts or to regulate common affairs, agreement among the land holders of neighboring areas regarding the holding and redistribution of land or irrigation or among caste men for the regulation of social customs or privileges or the settlement of disputes. Such corporate feelings were fairly well developed in the social and religious life of the medieval period.

To build a temple or endow a math, to attach a school or a hospital to either, to reclaim land and to promote irrigation -such were the most common roads to social eminence and public recognition. Temples constituted a sort of reserve bank with branches in every village which observed and retained the surplus wealth of the rich and absorbed and retained the surplus wealth of the community in normal times, and released it for use in seasons of financial stringency, and was even ready to help the community to turn a sharp corner. A destructive flood or prolonged drought might have wrought for more permanent damage to the economic of a locality if it were not for the assistance its people derived from the resources of the temple accumulated by the piety and industry of generations of their ancestors.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Nilakanta Sastri, K.A., The Colas, op.cit., p.652.

[2]:

Ramamurthy, V., History of Kongunadu, Prehistoric period to 1300 A.D., Part-I, Madras, l986, p.240.

[3]:

Arokiaswamy,M., The Kongu Country, Madras, 1956, pp 294-295.

[4]:

Subbarayalu,Y., ‘The Chola State’ in Studies in History, New Delhi, 2002, pp. 265-306.

[5]:

Cholan Purva Pattayam Madras,1960, p.104.

[6]:

Ganesan, M., Kongunadu Kalvettu, (Tamil) , Coimbatore, 2003, pp 203-225.