CLARITY ON CHARITY

NATIVE  CHARM

CLARITY ON  CHARITY

Charity is a virtue recommended by all religions, and even by those not believing in religion. Besides material charity, the higher idea of charity includes a charitable disposition, like being charitable in our views or judgement- ie not being harsh or unfair. Appeals for charity and opportunities for it are quite common and frequent. Many are the causes for which charity is sought, and institutions so seeking. It is all to the good as people's preferences and temperaments differ, provided those seeking charity are genuine.

We Hindus often get appeals to help with funds for building new temples, and even more frequently for renovating old temples, besides  various other 'charities' connected with temples, Mutts, yajnas, pujas, and other types of celebrations . Some Maths (Mutts) like the Ramakrishna Math frequently seek funds for some temple, hall, dispensary, memorial, relief work, etc. Yet do we ever examine the merits of such actions? Once the name of some Deity or Swami  or Swamiji or Mahan is taken, we are on the defensive and feel uncomfortable and guilty if we do not contribute.

Building New Temples

Take the appeal for funds to build new temples. It is baffling that people seek to construct new temples, while hundreds of old temples remain dilapidated and crumbling. And our old, well-maintained and well-attended temples have been taken over by a govt which calls itself secular, and in the case of Tamil Nad, by govts run by parties which call themselves 'rationalist' or atheist or their descendants! Often, the motive seems to be ego satisfaction . Or it may  be to have a temple free of govt. control. But what is the guarantee that the govt would not take over such temples too in the future, especially if they attract good revenue? Sometimes it is claimed by some that some Deity appeared in dream or vision and demanded construction of a temple! Well, it is for people to examine the claims and the credibility of persons making such claims.

Renovating Old Temples

Of late, appeals for funds for renovating old temples and re-sanctifying them are on the rise. They are made by people with good intentions, and supported by pious persons. Yet I feel something is wanting.

Why have the temples become dilapidated, in the first place? There are two reasons:

1. They were victims of Muslim invasion.

2. They have been victims of neglect by our own people.

(Now, in many places,old temples are threatened due to "development work" undertaken by the govt such as road widening or construction of a new highway.)

In the first case, since they were demolished or damaged by foreign rulers or rulers owing allegiance to foreign religions,  is it not the duty of the later or current rulers to restore and rebuild them?  If the Supreme Court building or Mumbai airport is bombed tomorrow by some hostile power, will not the govt. rebuild it? Does not the govt owe anything to the faith of 80% of the people? If they cannot rebuild them because they are "secular", then how can they run the Hindu temples?

On the one hand we have a govt which is so illogical and  insensitive to the people of the majority faith in this country. On the other hand we have people who are so senseless as to vote for the same govt!  Yet, both of them appeal to the common people for funds! What a shame!

As for temples which are neglected, what are the factors involved? These temples are often in the countryside, in villages. Some of them are small, but quite a few of them are quite big. Almost all of them display great workmanship. But they are neglected because the people who supported them and those who lived on the support provided by the temples have left the villages for "greener pastures" - in search of greater income and opportunities. In the absence of these families, the temples have no regular flow of visitors or income.

There are people belonging to such villages, but now resident in  cities who want to renovate them. But they cannot make any arrangement for regular maintenance thereafter! I will briefly deal with some specific cases I know.

Some neglected temples

There are many temples  in the villages around Sirkazhi.  Among them there is a group of 5 Narasimha temples, all beautiful. There is also a big and beautiful Ranganathaswamy temple. This temple is so big and the visiting population so thin, temple premises have been occupied by a fair-price shop,  a dirty govt. school and some other establishments. Except the archakas, there are no Brahmin residents and the non-Brahmin population of the place have no attachment to the temple. Yet, this temple contains the vigraha of Narasimha in one of the niches which is counted among the five, the darshan of all the five of which on the same day  is considered auspicious! The other four are in different directions but can be reached on bicycle or by  auto. But there are no temple -visiting residents in the villages! There are neither local archakas. The dedicated Swamiji who renovated the temples made some arrangement, but the same archaka has to attend two or more temples, and so the Deities and their devotees alike have to be in queue for their attention at the appropriate time slot! There is not a single Brahmin resident in those villages! But it was heart-warming to find an old Yadava devotee taking care of the temple premises in one village. He said he belonged to the clan of Krishna and there was no question of his leaving the village or the temple, income or no income! The visiting archaka was the sole visitor on most days! Who will maintain the archakas in the absence of regular visitors and revenue? And in the absence of the archakas, who will attend on the Deity?

Then there is the case of the famous Oothukadu. This contains a temple of Krishna in the form of Kalinganartana.  (Kaliyamartan) It was made famous by the songs of one Oothukadu Venkatasubbiyer. Some of the songs were made popular  by leading artists over the years. eg. Pithukuli Murugadas used to render songs like Aadadu asangadu va, mathura mathura, etc in his thrilling manner. Alaipayudey Kanna is sung by about any one!  The temple is a small one, but it has (or had?) a beautiful Agraharam. Yet it is devoid of all Brahmin residents , except one person who told me 5 years ago that he would not leave his Swami! The  Bhattacharya  is the scion of the family that has been the traditional archakas here for many generations, but who will pay him regularly? There are families for whom this Deity is the Kula Devata, but they reside outside. So like absentee landlords, they have to care for the temple through regular remittances and occasional visits! How long will this last? ( Renovation is on and Kumbhabishekam is due shortly.)

A view of the OOthukadu temple, with an inset of the famous poet and musician- Vekatasubbaiyer or Venkata Kavi.

Then there is a curious case of a  Devi temple in a village near Trichy. Very learned pundits, Dikshitars, Sri Vidya upasakas lived here. One of them is even mentioned by Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh is one of his books. Another wrote commentary on Lalita Sahasranama in Grantha, a Sanskrit rendering of which was published by Sri Sringeri Mutt recently, more than 70 years after the original  was written.. Yet this and other Brahmin families left the village more than 80 years ago.  Since  the puja pattern was based on specific Sri Vidya tenets, and since there was no Brahmin family  in the village, it fell into negligence. 

Recently, one branch of the family faced some problems and consultations with Kerala prasnam astrologers  revealed that their problems were due to neglect of the Deity. Yet, it was found in the prasnam that the temple in the old village was in a different location, the  river having changed course and obliterated old landmarks. The social composition and the power structure in the village  have totally changed and  this family cannot have control over the temple now! Yet they sent appeals  for funds to all branches of the family now literally scattered all over the country. Many outsiders have come forward to donate. It is quite likely that if they collect donations, govt will take over the temple. What is the point in renovation when the families concerned have no control, and in any case, none of them is a resident of the village, and is not going to be one in the future? It is also certain that the old orthodox system of worship- based on Sri Vidya tenets , which are considered exclusively Brahminical-  cannot be resumed in the new circumstances.

And what  generally happens in the name of renovation is also pathetic. Most of the old art work  and plaster is removed, the whole place is just cemented. There is now no one to renovate the Gopuram in the old style. One really does not know how many of the agama rules are violated in the process of renovation. For example, iron or steel cannot be used in the temple (except for Sani); yet, it is only concrete that is used for new construction . Are we not violating the rules in the name of renovation?

[ I refrain from mentioning the names of the places or persons as I do not want to cause offence or pain.]

Is renovation of old temples always meritorious?

Our most popular Deity- Pillayar- has no roof over His head except the tree top under the sky! Yet he continues to bless us! As children ( ie before our minds were polluted with worldly thoughts) we mostly prayed in such sacred spots! Alas, such Native Charms have largely disappeared in the name of 'development'!
Picture taken from the Web. Copyright status not known. Gratefully acknowledged.

Devotees who seek to renovate are sincere in their motives. They want to atone for past lapses, and also earn merit as promised in the sastras.

The sum of my submission is that there are hundreds of temples awaiting renovation, but unless devotees reside in the villages, and make arrangements for regular ritualistic worship, there is no merit in making nominal renewal with all fanfare with donations and then letting the temples languish into renewed negligence. I am prepared to take people round all the temples I have mentioned here so that they can see for themselves. And on the way, I will show scores more.

Those who seek to renovate the temples do not reside in those places. They only turn up  as occasional visitors. (They do not have sufficient faith or devotion to reside where their Deities are!) Those who reside there are mostly those who have no faith in temple worship, under the influence of the Dravidian parties. They certainly do not have faith in the established procedures, such as Sanskrit mantras and other allied rituals.( Leave alone the Agamas, even old Tamil works like Tirumantram do not permit deviation from the traditional rituals) The govt is interested only in the income. Then, for whom are the temples sought to be renovated?

The heart bleeds. One does not know whether it is the Muslim invaders or the Hindu "faithfuls"  or the govts which they elect who are more to blame.

Our actions are like jumping a well half-way. Or  fire-fighting, but how to prevent future fires?

Other Charitable works

Hindu dharma lays down that one should consider oneself trustee of his wealth  and not its owner. The very first mantra of the very first Upanishad asks us to enjoy by renunciation, not covet another's wealth etc. Since everything in the world belongs to God, one should not seek to accumulate or enjoy more than what is strictly necessary. Gandhiji developed the concept of Trusteeship on this basis.

Our inimitable Prabhupada explains this in theistic terms:

isavasyam idam sarvam

yat kinca jagatyam jagat

tena tyaktena bhunjitha

ma grdhah kasya svid dhanam 

isa--by the Lord; avasyam--controlled; idam--this; sarvam--all; yat kinca-- whatever; jagatyam--within the universe; jagat--all that is animate or inanimate; tena--by Him; tyaktena--set-apart quota; bhunjithah--you should accept; ma--do not; grdhah--endeavor to gain; kasya svit--of anyone else;dhanam--the wealth. 

TRANSLATION 

Everything animate or inanimate that is within the universe is controlled and owned by the Lord. One should therefore accept only those things necessary for himself, which are set aside as his quota, and one should not accept other things, knowing well to whom they belong. 

AC Bhaktivedanta  Swami Prabhupada on a morning walk with 

Baron von Durkheim in Frankfurt, 1974.

BY Christian Jensen (Own Work) [GFDL (CC BY 3.0 creative 

commons via Wikimedia Commons.

 Man is enjoined to spend his money on doing good works which are called "Ishtapurtham". They involve digging wells, constructing water tanks, providing food and medicines to the poor,etc.Various works on dharma emphasise different acts, all of which benefit the public. Indirectly they help the donor himself by reducing his attachment to money and possessions and widening his outlook. In loosening his purse strings, he enlarges his heart- not a bad bargain at all!

The Bhagavad Gita which distills the accumulated wisdom of our sages and sastras clearly lays down:

Yajna daana tapa: karma
 na tyaajyam kaaryameva tat
Yajno daanam tapas chaiva
 paavanaani maneeshina:                        18.5

The work of Yajna, daanam and tapas (austerity) should not be relinquished.It should indeed be performed.
The wise consider yajna, daana and tapas as purifying.

Bhagavan Krishna tells Arjuna that these are  "the final truths" (Mae nischayam- as finally determined by Me- 18.4) regarding Tyaga ie relinquishment.

As usual, we must be careful in understanding these words because they are from Bhagavan.

Yajna gets different meanings at different hands. Having regard to the trend and tenor of Gita, we may take it that here Yajna does not mean those exotic sacrifices which are performed by Kings and others on big or ceremonial occasions. Or other kinds of Vedic yajnas which are performed with the desire to attain higher worlds or other benefits. Krishna is mentioning here "maneeshina:" which means the wise ones. And unlike those other yajnas which give heaven and other bhogas, this here gives purification of mind and heart ( "paavanani").

These yajnas are the 5 types of daily yajnas that every householder is required to do for purification- as discharge of debt:
- Rishi Yajna- discharge of obligation to Rishis
-Deva Yajna- to Deities
-Pitru  Yajna- to the Manes
-Nara Yajna- to human beings
- Bhuta Yajna- to all forms of life.

These Yajnas are compulsory. The sastras say that their performance does not confer any merit (punya) but their non-performance causes demerit (paapa). Thus their performance results in chitta suddhi- purification of mind.

Popular translations render Yajna as 'sacrifice'. How wrong it is!

What is daana? 

People translate it as gift or charity. If we give a rupee to a beggar, it is an act of charity or gift. Is it? 

No. Daana in Sastra has a technical meaning. It means giving the specific things to people who are qualified to receive it, in accordance with specific rules and subject to mantras. Just any act of charity will not qualify as "daana". It may be called 'dharmam' as the popular expression goes, but not daanam. 

It may be seen that in all Vedic religious observances, the main daana given are Vastra ( clothes), food (anna) along with offering of water. Providing food and clothes to the needy and water are the highest forms of daana. 

Saint Aandal says in her great hymn Tiruppavai  (17) about Nandagopa:

அம்பரமே, தண்ணீரே, சோறே அறஞ்செய்யும்
     எம்பெருமான்! நந்தகோ பாலா!

Ambaramae Tanneerae Sorae aram cheyyum
 Emperumaan Nandagopala

O Nandagopala, our Master, who always gives clothes,water, and food  as acts of religious  duty!

Let us just consider for a moment: Krishna was the son of Vasudeva  and Devaki and was born at Mathura. But he was brought up by Nandagopala and Yasoda at Gokula. What must have been the merit of Nandagopala that he fully witnessed  and enjoyed the pranks of Krishna in his childhood and boyhood- that was not given to the biological parents to witness! Aandal gives here a clue! 

The best works of charity are therefore giving food, water and clothing to the needy and deserving.

There is an opinion that food can be given to anybody. But Sri Ramakrishna cautions us. He tells us a story. Once someone was performing sraddha ceremony and fed many people. One of them later that day led a cow to a butcher. Now, Sri Ramakrishna says that the person who fed him that day did not get any merit on account of feeding this man, but only earned paapa on account the cow slaughter! So we have to be careful whom we feed!

These days, persons  who beg do not accept in kind and want money. Yet we do not know what they use the money for. One disabled beggar who begs in our locality sitting in a wheel chair does money lending business! Many beggars reportedly booze and smoke. Here too, we have an incident. Vivekananda's father , Vishwanath Dutt,  was a big lawyer and had a charitable disposition. But he gave indiscriminately. Friends often criticised him that he gave money to people without enquiring about them and they often bought liquor with that money. Vishwanath told them that the world was  so full of misery that it was  quite justified if someone bought drinks with money so that at least for sometime he could forget his worries! Could Vivekananda's father be an ordinary person!  But after his sudden demise, it was found that he had been living beyond his means and had left debts. The family was left in such penury that Vivekanada would on days  forgo his own food at home so that his brothers and sister may get more! Oh, what father, what son!

Signature of Vivekananda's father. This is all we have- no photo is available. Wikimedia commons.

 Let us bow before these great souls. But then, let us also be careful how we go about in our charity!

NOTE:

1.Many of the sastric injunctions have to be interpreted carefully, as there have been drastic changes in society. When the old books say, ghee for lighting lamp or for homas, it means cow's ghee. So is milk for abhisheka. But then, the cow must be fed as per the sastra too- they must be allowed to graze in the open, consume natural vegetation, mate naturally,  the calf must be allowed to suckle at the udder first. Do these conditions prevail now?  The cows are foreign breeds, they are not let to graze naturally but fed 'chemically treated feed, they are given hormone injections, they are artificially inseminated. The DNA of the milk they yield does not agree with Indians' DNA. And the milk that we get commercially has undergone change of their nature and it is reconstituted. The butter is not extracted on traditional lines, from curd but before formation of the curd. And this milk and the ghee are mostly from buffaloes. When we use such products, can we claim that we are using milk and ghee as per sastra? Or, can we ensure that we get articles as really prescribed?  Are we sure about the purity of the honey and sandal paste that we get in the market- or even of the camphor?

2.In the same way with temples. The pujas and neivedya must be performed timely, daily, based on the relevant Agama and the Yantras fixed. Veda  must be properly recited at stated times. Kumbahabishekam must be performed at the specified intervals, based on the type of Gopuram.  If we  cannot  make arrangements for these to be followed, how can merits flow from such renovations?  ( Just reflect: the arrangements made by former kings are not followed now. The Big Temple in Tanjore cannot even afford to light lamps, though kings made endowments!) Devotees must have discrimination too, besides enthusiasm.

In this sense, construction of new temples in places where people reside seems better, provided the appropriate rules are followed. Most such temples are concrete structures, and it surely is not according to sastra! People in Tamil Nad have ideas of temples based on what they see. If they visit the temples of  Kerala and Karnataka along the West Coast, they will see temples of different type which have maintained their sannidhya entirely due to the unchanged and uncompromised rituals, though the temples are not huge stone structures as in Tamil Nad. ( Even in Tamil Nad, the ancient temples were not of stone, as I can still show them around Sirkazhi. They have a different type of vimanam too! ) Stone walls do not a temple make, necessarily! We must take a leaf out of the experience of neighbouring states!

3. We should remember that the images in the temples are not holy or sacred by themselves- except in instances like Guruvayur and Udupi where the images are of divine origin. Though the images are treated as "archavataram", their power is derived and reinforced by the Mantric rituals. Once the image is installed and infused with life (pranapratishta) it has to be maintained without break only through the mantra and the rituals. Where this cannot be ensured, people should think seriously before constructing or renovating temples.

4. There are places/objects which are naturally sacred/holy- like, mountains, trees, lakes, rivers, Salagramam, Rudraksha, etc. In such cases we have to ensure that we maintain the natural sanctity, by not adding anything which would interfere with or detract from it. The least we could do is not to pollute the atmosphere. Our  people should visit the temples of Japan (both Shinto and Buddhist) to learn how the surroundings and atmosphere are kept clean and pure, and also aesthetic. God does not despise order or beauty!

5. Many temples have derived their sanctity by the dedication of Jnanis, Saints, great devotees. Even today, temples in North India vibrate with the power of pure devotion of the ordinary people, not mantra and tantra, or ceremonial purity or piety. Let us also remember that all Avataras that we worship  ( including Subrahmanya) took place in the North. All the sacred places in the North like Kailas, Kashi, Prayag, Badri-Kedar, Trayambak etc are totally natural and innately sacred. We have only managed to pollute them in the name of "development". Every sacred place or kshetra has become a tourist spot. See how dirty Rameswaram has become. What was a pilgrimage has been converted into a pleasure trip. Where there were choultries, there are now "Star" hotels! Recently, Kedarnath attracted the wrath of the gods because of such sacrilege.

6. Tayumanvar sang:

மூர்த்திதலந் தீர்த்தம் முறையாய்த் தொடங்கினர்க்கோர்
வார்த்தைசொலச் சற்குருவும் வாய்க்கும் பராபரமே.156.

Murty talam thirtham muraiyaaith thodanginarkor
Vaartai sola sarguruvum vaaikkum paraparamae'

( Those beginning with worship of images, visits to sacred places and holy waters, will be blessed with a true Guru, by the grace of God.)

So we should not forget that the ultimate aid to Liberation is the Sadguru. Other steps are aids on the way. Ultimately, where is God or Guru except in the Heart? As Tirumoolar sang:

Taenukkul inbam serindirundaarpol
Oonukkul Easan uraindirundaanae.

( As sweetness pervades honey, God pervades our very person/being.)

If we do not feel the presence of God within, can we perceive Him outside? 

In a situation where it has become difficult if not impossible to maintain  external sanctity or ceremonial fidelity, it may be better to focus on internal purity!

 I offer these thoughts only for reflection, not as advice.

உள்ளம் பெருங்கோவில்  ஊனுடம்பு  ஆலயம்

     வள்ளல்  பிரானார்க்கு வாய் கோபுரவாசல்

     தெள்ளத் தெளிந்தார்க்கு  சீவன்  சிவலிங்கம்

  கள்ளப் புலன் ஐந்தும் காளாமணிவிளக்கே---திருமந்திரம் 1804
  
Our body is temple par excellence. God resides here as the Atma. Purification of the five senses is the way to light the lamp in worship. (We must  give up the idea that we are the body and realise that Atma is the Ultimate Reality.) 

--Tirumantram of Tirumular.