Temples as student’s feuding centre

The students of the salai, the educational institution were stay in the hostels. The Munnur temple had undertaken to feed them. When many were to be fed, there arose the need for huge amount of money and the enormous food grains, ghee, butter milk, oil and vegetables. Rajendra I in an inscription of this temple attests to the arrangements made for feeding the learned Brahmanas and scholars of the salai.^[1] From this it is learnt that free feeding houses were sustained by royal patronage and public benefactions.

Inscriptions refer to the active interest evinced by the Chola ruler Rajendra I in this matter. These instances reveal the elaborate assistance and arrangement for running the salai and the feeding centre. Likewise, the development of the several neighbouring villages and the numerous towns were closely associated with the Munnur temple. It attracted a large number of the population, because cities and. villages were closely connected with the deities in the temple. The temple was thus the nucleus around which a town in course of time grew.

As temples were the only recognised institutions, people gave due respect and importance to them. For instance a record of Rajendra I mentions a gift of Nallur lands for providing mid-day meal to the Brahmanas who were well-versed in Vedas, and Sudras of the Salai an Educational Institution of Munnur, Adavalleswarar temple.

The political social condition that prevailed in this period compelled the people to depend more on temples. People began to settle very close to the devadana and Brahmadeya lands and considered temple their guide and saviour. Most of the temples exploited the situation and brought them under their control and guidance. Thus, the temple-oriented society developed.

A study of this chapter clarifies that the whole life of the people of Munnur was mostly centred on the temple. This system was in tune with the Hindu view of life, in which every day human affair was a ritualized religious act. Therefore the concept of secular life at Munnur was subordinated to the religious life. This was the idealized concept of Hinduism. The Hindu temple reflects the idealized aspect by being the pivot of almost all secular acts. Here all secular, mundane acts, in the name of the temple, are transformed or sublimated to a religious or spiritual place.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Unpublished Inscription. See Appendix No.1.