Temples of Munnur (Historical Study)
by R. Muthuraman | 2016 | 67,784 words
This essay represents a historical study of the Temples in and around Munnur, situated in the Dakshina Kannada district in the state Karnataka (India). Munnur is regarded as an important religious city for the followers of both Shaivism and Vaishnavism. The ancient history of Munnur traces to the reign of the Chola, from whom the city derives it's ...
Temple as an employment office
Before 7thcentury the temples might have been a small structure of brick and mortar attended by the villagers for worship. In due course of time Munnur temples had become "a village of miniature in the medieval period".[1] All this required huge resources were provided through royal gifts made generously by Cholas, Pandyas, Kadavarayas, Sambuvarayas, Gajapathis, Vijayanagar rulers, officials, merchants, various communities and individuals. Gradually but steadily wealth flowed into the officials of the temples and came to posses fabulous amount of immovable and movable properties such as land, crops, gold, cash and cattle.
The Munnur temples were enormously wealthy and served as the source of income to the town Munnur where it was situated, for the many communal groups, social groups who lived there and spent considerable money to the temples. Thus the temples both Adavalleswarar temple and Arulala Perumal temple gave employment to a large number of priests, musicians, attendants, dancing girls, scribes, accountant’s craftsmen and laborers. On special occasions, the rulers performed special pujas and annual festivals. In this context Munnur temple were enormously donated and on various special occasions the monarchs performed special pujas with rituals and to celebrate the annual festivals.
The Munnur Adavalleswarar temple also maintained an advance educational institution not only to Tamil Country but also to other countries of Southern India. It dispensed charity free with ghee and butter milk to students and learned Brahmanas in times of their Sanskrit learning.
Endowments were made by every sections of the society. Donors can be divided into five groups, members of the royal family, chieftain’s, officials, the private donors such as merchant class and individuals etc. Like their predecessors, the Pallavas, the Cholas, the Kadavarayas, the Sambuvarayas, the Gajapathis and the Vijayanagar rulers were parsons of temples[2]. Each king had his enormous donations to the Principal deity and Parivaradevatas and the temples in which these deities were housed received special benefactions.