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Summary: The religion of Vedanta, commonly called Hinduism, has been in a gradual and long-lasting decline on several fronts for the past five centuries. Today, the majority of its temples are poorly maintained or in neglect, even though a few are hugely popular. Its priests are generally poorly-educated, underpaid, demoralized, and unequipped to serve a 21^st-century audience. Most practicing Hindus ignore its key message – to seek God within, and whether rich or poor, primarily pray to their favorite deity to gain advantage in life rather than to grow spiritually. And while Hinduism remains the religion of a majority of India’s population, it has only a minor presence outside India and its numbers are declining in India as well as worldwide as a proportion of the population.

The steeply sloping outer roof of the inner sanctum of the famous fifteen-centuries-old Venketeshwara  temple in Tirupati in South India  is literally covered in gold. Here the Lord of the Tirumala hills, the popular  Venketeshwara, a version of Vishnu, basks in all His glory, presiding  over the hazy vista of the Deccan lowlands at His feet and the steamy multitudes who shower the temple with their sweat, their devotion and their hard-earned donations. Each year, almost 22 million devout pilgrims brave the usually scorching Andhra sun for hours in line, patiently waiting for a twenty-second hurried encounter with the Lord who smiles inscrutably from that inner sanctum, yearning for the darshan that brings with it His divine blessing[TTD Website, see http://www.tirumala.org/ttd_board.htm, Based on estimates from “Tirumala, The Epicenter of Faith”, CNN/IBN, October 31, 2006 ].

From this lofty vantage point, at first glance, Hinduism seems to be vibrant, popular, and thriving. Yet across those lowlands to south, just 350 km away in the adjacent state of Tamil Nadu, a poor cousin awaits the careful observer. The Kumbakonam Sarangapani temple, considered of equal religious significance to Tirupati, whose reigning deity is just another representation of exactly the same Vishnu, lies neglected by all but a handful of locals and curious visitors. The famous mathematician Ramanujan and his family regularly offered prayers at the Sarangapani temple, which was just down the street from his home. The outer monument was built by a Chola king in 1121 A.D, and boasts the beautiful architectural design of a chariot drawn by horses and elephants[i]. Despite being almost as historically important and quite venerable, the melancholy grounds of the Sarangapani temple lie in a state of creeping decay  for lack of attention, funds, and devotees.

The divergent fortunes of these two otherwise similar temples  is illuminated by a simple anecdotal fact: while the TTD (Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam), which maintains 12 temples including the main Venketeshwara shrine and employs 14,000 people [http://www.tirumala.org/ttd_board.htm], had budgeted 2007 revenues in excess of Rs 900 Cr. ($225 million). In contrast, in 2006, the Sarangapani temple’s major annual  Chithirai Chariot (Ratham) festival had not been conducted for the previous 21 years, and the car itself was in a dilapidated condition, for lack of Rs. 16 Lacs ($40,000) required to repair the car and conduct the festival[“Temple Car Festival”, The Hindu, 05/24/2006, http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/24/stories/2006052407640400.htm]. As we shall see, the Sarangapani temple’s, unfortunately, is by far the more typical of the worldly fate that has befallen the most visible part of  Hinduism’s historical and cultural heritage – its temples.

A Historical Excursion

The reasons for this centuries-long decline are straightforward, but to understand them, a brief excursion into India’s political history is indispensable. Temples in ancient as well as in more modern times, have derived revenues from three basic sources: the Hundi (donation box), the sponsorship of local benefactors, such as landowners and other prominent families, and endowments from the local king or chieftain. The latter forms of donation tended to be more important, because they were often in the form of income-producing land grants. These grants have made a few temples relatively wealthy, and have also protected their wealth from inflation over the centuries in addition to providing them with a steady income.

In the last ten centuries, the ancient system of kingly patronage that sustained Hindu temples has been reduced, diluted and eventually eliminated, receiving successive body blows from which it never recovered. The first of these blows was the succession of Muslim raids on India, although their destructive impact on Hindu temples is probably exaggerated by some. These raids were followed by the replacement of Hindu kings with Muslim monarchs beginning with the Ghaznavid Sultanates established in the 12^th Century, and ending in the Moghul empire. Muslim rulers generally tolerated but did not actively support temples. Moslem rule was followed by the British Raj, which continued the policy of laissez faire toleration and support, again  without much active patronage.

Muslim Raids and Muslim Rule

Muslim incursions into India began with the earliest raids in 715 A.D. by Mohammed bin Qasim, and continued intermittently for the next five centuries. Two of the more famous raiders were  Mahmud Ghazni (circa 1000 AD) and  Mohammed Ghouri (circa 1200 AD).  It is widely acknowledged by medieval historians that Muslim invaders destroyed some Hindu temples, but the estimates vary widely, depending on the source, from several thousand (Goel[]) to fewer than 100 (Eaton[]). Given the political agendas behind some of the numerically high estimates, given that the main incentive for the early raids was plunder, and given the likelihood that there existed relatively few rich temples, one is inclined to lean towards the more conservative numbers. Without acceding to the lurid and exaggerated claims of so-called Hindutva scholars that these raids destroyed over 30,000 temples, and acknowledging that so-called “Hindu-on-Hindu” looting likely also played a significant role, the concomitant loss of wealth was likely to have been considerable. Nevertheless, the destruction and loss of wealth in many famous temples, including accumulated over centuries of royal and feudal philanthropy was considerable. So was the indirect impact in terms of the destruction of the local Hindu power base of patronage that supported the temples.

The period of Muslim rule in India began with the slave dynasty of Qutub-Ud-Din Aibak, circa 1200, included the rise and decline of the Mughal empire, and ended  when the British Raj was finally established in the mid-1800s (Wolpert[]). At its peak, the Moghul empire not only encompassed all but the southernmost tip of modern India, but incorporated present-day Pakistan and much of Afghanistan as well. However, it is possible to exaggerate the extent and influence of Muslim sovereignty in two ways. From 1200 to 1700, even while Muslim power was waxing, it controlled only a fraction of the territory that it eventually grew to occupy; indeed many of the most beautiful and famous temples in India, such as [] were built or enhanced during this period by kings in areas not directly under Muslim rule during this period. Furthermore, even after the Mughal empire came to occupy most of present-day India, the empire actually included many Hindu kingdoms that paid tribute to the Mughal emperor but were actually controlled locally by Hindu kings or chieftains, who continued to support their local temples. From 1700 to about 1850, by which time the British had established firm control over much of India, the Mughal empire was in a state of decay, and many of the Empire’s erstwhile vassals had declared independence once again.

Understandably, the Muslim rulers of Hindu realms poured their wealth and energy into the building of mosques, mausoleums, and forts, rather than temples. Public funds (in the form of regular taxes as well as the Jiziya (a tax on non-Muslims that was only in place during a fraction of the Moghul period) and a significant part of available skilled and unskilled labor were thus made unavailable for the building or maintenance of temples. On the other hand, it is worth emphasizing that even in areas controlled directly by Muslim kings, contrary to the polemic of Hindutva revisionists, most Moslem rulers did not indiscriminately destroy the Hindu temples in their realm, if only with the pragmatic aim of maintaining order and keeping their subjects from revolting. It is well known that Akbar followed a relatively enlightened policy towards his Hindu subjects, abolishing the jiziya (tax on non-muslims) and allowing the flourishing of Hindu culture. More generally, most Moghul rulers followed a pragmatic practice in continuing a system of land grants to prominent Hindu temples. This was true even of Aurangzeb, who is famously known for his destruction of several key Hindu temples such as the Keshava Rai temple in Mathura, his outlawing of Hindu fairs in 1668, his prohibition on the construction of new temples in 1669, and his reimposition of the Jiziya in 1679. For example, Aurangzeb did bestow land grants on the Someshwar Nath Mahadev temple in Allahabad, Jangum Badi Shiva temple in Banaras, and Umanand temple in Gauhati.

[Chandra, Satish. "Reassessing Aurangzeb", Seminar, no. 364: Mythifying History (December 1989). and Harbans Mukhia, "Medieval Indian History and the Communal Approach", in Romila Thapar, Harbans Mukhia, and Bipan Chandra, Communalism and the Writing of Indian History (New Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1969), p. 29.. Quoted in   “Aurangzeb, Akbar, and the Communalization of History”, Vinay Lal, Manas, http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Mughals/Aurang3.html]

Hindu Temples Under the British

When the East India Company arrived in the 1600s, it adopted an official policy under the Charter of Charles II, of  pragmatism and profitability[] that lasted until the direct rule of the British government was finally put in place after the 1859 mutiny. In practice, this policy, broadly labeled “tolerance”, meant leaving the Hindus to do their thing. Under the rules, there were to be “no compulsory conversions to Christianity, no interference with native habits, and no cow-killing in native quarters”[].  Of course, tolerance is a far cry from active support, and the Company and the British government was under constant pressure from missionaries such as Willam Carey to “reform” India and “rescue” its poor and uninformed multitudes from its pagan, idolatrous, and superstitious religious practices.

As the British gained control over large parts of India, they often inherited responsibility (sometimes as part of the “conditions of surrender” by local kings) for various Hindu and Muslim religious shrines and festivals. In their customary bureaucratic way, British officials then set about taking over and regularizing the endowments and administrative bodies for these temples. At one time over 7600 shrines in the Madras area alone were under British government jurisdiction[]. In this manner, the British established the foundation for the thousands of modern temple administrations that now run Hindu temples all over India. Many British Administrators went “native” to the extent of allowing or even supervising explicitly Hindu practices within the administration, including dedicating government records to Ganesha, employing Brahmin weather ceremonies, adjudicating temple disputes on idolatry in British courts, and ordering official gun salutes to Hindu gods as late as the 1850s []. These practices drew cries of outrage from British evangelicals and missionaries who described the Company as “a dry nurse to Vishnu” and the “churchwarden of Juggernaut”(sic)[]. Eventually, and especially after the British government took over from the East India Company, missionaries had a freer rein and the number of Christian conversions and churches began to grow, although the extent of Christian influence never approached that of Islam.

It would be inaccurate to read an altruistic or pro-Hindu stance into the British involvement in Hindu temples described above. Rather, it bespoke a practical, some might say cynical, expediency that served the ultimate economic and political ends of the colonial administration. Politically, India was an enormous cash cow that needed to be kept calm to be milked. The proximate economic motives are obvious as well, for many temples generated positive cash flow for the Company. For example, post expenses, the administrations of the prominent Hindu shrines of Gaya, Allahabad and Jagannath netted £690,000 for the British over a 16 year period[]. Aspects  that were actively British-administered included temple entrance fees, certificate issuance to pilgrims, licensing devadasis[], and conscripting pullers for the Jagganath carts (often a life-threatening occupation)[].

Politically, the administration of temples was also often entailed by British treaties with local kings, and was necessary simply to keep them running smoothly. Even so, in the later phase of British rule, particularly since many temples were a headache to administer and produced losses, the British sought to return the temples to local Hindu rulers (who still operated under British control) and to wash their hands off  what they saw as an unprofitable and un-Christian headache. The Puri Jagannath temple is a good example; after the British under Lord Wellesley occupied Orissa in 1803,  its administration was quickly placed by the British in the hands of the local Raja of Khurda with a small endowment. However, due to over a century of mismanagement by the appointees of the Raja and his descendants, and loss of control over temple employees,  the property and its revenues deteriorated, and the British administration had to repeatedly interfere by reinserting itself into in the temple’s affairs until 1947 and in one instance, sued the monarchy in court over temple mismanagement. Finally, after independence, the Indian government passed the Sri Jagannath Temple act of 1954 which established a non-profit temple administration to oversee the temple’s affairs.[]

Conclusion: The Muslim and Colonial Legacy

To summarize, the degree of support from Muslim and British rulers for Hindu temples varied from active hostility to tolerance and even support.  However, it is safe to say that, while most Moslem rulers and the British allowed, and in some cases supported Hindu temples, they did not actively support the building or enhancement of temples, but for the most part merely tolerated their existence and in some cases, actively supported them to kept them running[ii]. Nor could their support, when given, be as generous as that of the Hindu kings who preceded them, because neither the new rulers’  faith nor their prestige as rulers was linked to the Hindu religion. One must infer, without necessarily attaching a value judgment, that a substantial portion of  tax revenues that would have been used to build new temples, had India been under the suzerainty of Hindu kings over the past 500 years, were instead diverted under Muslim and British administrations to build monuments, forts, mosques, palaces, roads, schools, railways and other public works, to waste on luxuries,  or simply to send to London as the spoils of conquest.

We conclude that as India’s system of princely, predominantly Hindu states gave way first to Muslim, then colonial administrations, three factors conspired to drain vitality from the vast network of Hindu temples. The first was the destruction of some temples and the looting of them by raids. The second factor was the orphaning of the endowments under non-Hindu rule, along with the cessation of temple building, especially of the large and spectacular monuments which were the icons of the Hindu princedoms.

Last, and perhaps as important as the first two factors, was that the Hindu temples, once orphaned from their primary source of support (the local king), were never combined into a network with common administration, endowments, and revenue sharing arrangements. It is difficult to exactly apportion responsibility for this, but the lack of motivation on the part of non-Hindu rulers, the differences and rivalry among the branches of Hinduism represented by the temples, differences in language and culture across different parts of India, etc. all played a part. This fragmentation remains a feature of the way temples are run today; Hinduism is the only one of the world’s great religions that lacks an ecclesiastical common base with a central administration. We shall next see how these factors conspire with the secular climate in modern India to diminish the prosperity of Indian temples, cause their administrations to be static and backward-looking, and reduce their ability to  influence their still devout laity.

Hindu Temples Today

The final and most recent phase of temple administration is the post-independence era, which has done little so far to repair centuries of benign neglect. The job of administering the majority of temples in post-independence India fell primarily to a patchwork of private non-profit boards or endowments, largely a legacy of the British Raj. These were regularized or continued after independence, through acts like the aforementioned Jagannath Temple Act (1954), and various separate temple administrations were created throughout India. Each temple has its own unique cultural, legal, and local religious traditions and practices, and these were sought to be preserved as much as possible by the British, as well as by the Indian government that took over. The typical system consists of a set of endowments, and a system of financial and operational governance, and a system of local rules and traditions. We will describe each of these elements below.

The endowments consist mostly of property, usually of three types. The first is the temple and some surrounding land, often including living quarters for temple employees. The second, constituting the bulk of many prosperous temples’ property, is agricultural, often with tenants who pay dues to the temple endowment. The third consists of property in nearby cities which were donated by wealthy patrons, and which in some cases have appreciated substantially to make the temples very wealthy.

While some temples are rich, the vast majority of temples is very poor. To take the case of Tamil Nadu as an example, of 36,322 temples listed in fiscal year 2007-2008 with the government, 34,415 had annual revenues of under Rs. 10,000 ($250), and only 160 had annual revenues of over Rs. 1mm ($25,000). In most of India, there is no mechanism for the sharing of resources among temples in the service of a common purpose, even when the temples belong to the same religious denomination ( as it happens, Tamil Nadu, where all the temples are administered by the state government, is an exception to this rule, as discussed below). Furthermore, as specified by the constitution, the government does not provide funds to temples. Indeed, the reverse is often true as temples are often  taxed to the tune of 7% to 15% of their annual revenues to fund the operations of State government overseeing authorities.

The proper management of these thousands of private endowments requires some type of ultimate accountability, which in past times was to the local king or chieftain. Absent a benevolent local sovereign, the task has fallen to some combination of the Indian government and the court system, without, however, the same degree of interest or involvement on their part. If a temple languishes for lack of funds, there is often no one left to help. If someone misappropriates temple land, a practice alleged to be rampant, the case may not even be prosecuted, or if it is, may be contested in court unresolved for years [Pilgrim Centres/Asthapans - Potential Source of the Community, C.L. Sadhu, Kashmir http://www.vitasta.org/2002/2.4.html]. It is because of this fragmentation and general loss of accountability that most temples are in dire straits, even as a few such as Tirupati are prosperous and thriving.

The second element of temple administration is the system of financial and operational governance. The administration of each temple can range from the very simple to quite complex depending on the size of the temple, and is carried out by an adminstrative board, often known as the “dharmakartas”. In some instances, the spiritual head of the temple is separate from its administrative arm, depending on the tradition of the temple. For instance, there is strong historical evidence that Ramanuja, the great philosopher and spiritual leader of the 11^th century, who founded the major branch of Hinduism known as Visishta-Advaita (or qualified non-dualism),  himself undertook a revamping of the administration of the famous Vaishnava temple of Srirangam, separating the authority into spiritual and administrative, defining roles, responsibilities, and hereditary practices for various functions and caste groups that have endured to this day[“Crisis of Authority in a Hindu Temple under the Impact of Islam, George Spencer, in Religion and the Legitimation of Power in South Asia, Ed. Bardwell, Leiden EJ Brill, 1978 ].

The temple’s board members typically employ  an administrative staff, including an executive officer, to oversee the temple’s employees, including priests, cooks, cleaners, florists, musicians, watchmen, laborers, etc. They oversee temple finances, including temple revenues from hundi collections, temple sponsorships, puja receipts, etc., as well as temple  expenses, such as maintenance, salaries, repairs, festivals, poojas, food for distribution, charitable and learned activities, etc. The executive officer  hires and fires employees, hires contractors, and administers the temple on a day-to-day basis. Major temples may have an attached center of learning, may operate schools, charitable activities, hospitals, and even chowltries (motels) for pilgrims. All these functions need budgets, operational staff, and ongoing management.

The third element of temple governance consists of the by-laws, or the constitution under which the temple is run. Each temple has a set of sampradayas or traditions, and many of these are enshrined in historical practice rather than a matter of written law. In some cases, the temple may have a written chronicle that enshrines the traditions of that temple. They may be documented only partially and may rely purely on prior practice (precedents) for their legitimacy. Such traditions may include such matters as, for example a) What festivals and rituals are celebrated in the temple, and the precise manner in which they are to be carried out b) the rules for hiring of certain employees including priests (often hereditary) c) the division of temple responsibilities and checks and balances to ensure financial probity, etc. For example, the famous Vaishnava temple at Srirangam in Tamil Nadu has a chronicle, or a Koil Ozugu, going back to the 11^th century, and describing the temple’s organization, functions, and practices, including the period when Ramanuja was the spiritual head of the temple[]. In this case, the Olugu turns out to be a rich source of information about historical precedents at the temple, such as the origin of the various hereditary functions of the temple, as well as a historical record of events at the temple.

When one of these temple traditions is called into dispute, the courts are called upon to settle these disputes. This has led to a vast set of court cases and precedents for judging temple disputes, and an erudite set of lawyers who specialize in temple law[]. While there is some element of commonality across temples, particularly within the same region or religious tradition, one can be sure that no two temples are likely to  have identical practices. As such, the attempt to keep these individual temples running in modern times while respecting temples’ individual traditions has been a legal and logistical nightmare. Many major temples in India have been subject to a long string of glitches, court challenges, and accusations of misbehavior by some aggrieved party or the other. Many of these disputes are between internal groups that could be trying to take control of temple administration or finances. Ultimately, this can lead to costly court battles, and to the neglect of the temple and its ultimate goals[Unhealthy Holy Cities, The Modern Rationalist, http://www.themronline.com/200303m2.html  ,“About 40 per cent of the 6,000 temples in [Ayodhya] are involved in disputes regarding land or seat of power.”][Rishabh Dev Temple at Kesariya Ji http://jainsamaj.org/magazines/march2007.htm]  . At the same time, bringing temples under a common authority has faced popular and legal challenges, often with good reason, as we shall discuss next.

In some parts of India, the patchwork of private boards controlling temples has been replaced by a more centralized system, and control over the temples has gradually been assumed, usually  by the State government. Although the degree of governmental involvement varies from state to state, Tamil Nadu is the most advanced example of a centralized system, where attempts to centralize temple administration began as early as 1925 and the government’s supervisory role was finally enshrined in legislation enacted after independence (Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959). Here, the state government  , which runds the temples through

indeed too poor to afford a priest, even at the abysmal compensation levels commanded by priests today. The system of governance of temples is also fragmented. The system is  fragmented, does not distribute resources equitably and in some cases, is lacking in accountability.

Second, in a few states such as Tamil Nadu, the State Government, itself a secular entity, was empowered to oversee the administration of its temples. In other cases, these administrations are being supervised by India’s State governments, with an overwhelmingly secular rather than religious mandate.

It is interesting to note that the Indian government has been at pains, quite appropriately, to distance itself from any type of Hindu religious role in society. Its interest  in protecting or maintaining temples arises only insofar as they represent a historical cultural legacy. The newly independent government of India was conceived as a secular, non-religious body. Under Jawaharlal Nehru’s stern leadership, the Indian polity wanted as little as possible to do with religion, especially Hindu religion, and indeed the separation of church and state is carefully enshrined in the Indian constitution. The subsequent addition of the 42^nd amendment appended the words “secular” and “socialist”, hammering home the disavowal of any religious shading. At the same time, Article 30 of the constitution protects minority religions and allows government funding for their religious institutions. This has led Hindu advocates to cry foul – they say that Hinduism is actively discriminated against by the government.

Furthermore, there is no ministry in the central government that is explicitly charged with the management of religious affairs.

Priests

As with the temples, so with the living embodiment of their traditions (sampradaya) – their priests. When I returned to India and visited my neighborhood temple, I found that the priest I had been accustomed to since my childhood was gone. I learned that he had retired  the previous year – surely his prerogative. At one time, his son had been training to take his place. But the son instead found a more rewarding (certainly monetarily, and perhaps in other ways as well) avocation, and a mumbling automaton with shuffling feet and barely audible incantations had assumed the father’s place at the temple. I came away vaguely dissatisfied, my sentimental thirst for childhood ritual unslaked.

But priests and temples are only the outward manifestations of a religion, so one could argue that their decline would matter little if the religion lived on in the hearts of the people. Particularly in the case of Hinduism, paramount importance is assigned to the individual’s spiritual quest over temples, rituals and other outward trappings. But does the practice of Hinduism bear out these lofty ideals? For today’s city-dwelling, cosmopolitan, twenty-first-century, middle-class Hindu, Hinduism in practice has been reduced to a sound bite to be snatched on the go, a TV soap opera to be watched, a social occasion to see and be seen at the temple and in religious functions, an insurance policy for life after death to be purchased for a few hundred rupees in the form of a priest and an occasional pompous religious ceremony. At these religious ceremonies, hardly a word or action of the elaborate rituals is understood or internalized, and the clothes on display and the food served are typically the chief preoccupations. At the other end of the economic spectrum from the urban Hindu sophisticate are the unwashed hordes, with their superstitions and their myriad personal gods, praying daily in quiet desperation for the specifics in health, wealth, and happiness that will lift them out of their circumstances. They, for their part, are if at all, only dimly aware of the philosophical underpinnings of their religion – a philosophy that, if they should read it closely, would make it quite clear that their pleadings for special dispensation are fruitless and will not aid them in their religious salvation.

So far we have noted the decline of a majority of Hindu temples, remarked anecdotally on its priests, and lamented the insincerity of its followers. Let us complete the unhappy tour with a statistical and ideological summary. About 885 million (82%) of India’s 1.1 billion people are Hindu[iii]. But of the world’s population of 6.43 billion, only 943 million (14.6% ) is Hindu. Thus the vast majority of Hindus are Indian. Further, the Hindu growth rate of about 20% per decade  is slower than India’s overall population growth rate of 21.5% per decade, which means Hindus are (quite gradually) shrinking as a proportion of the Indian population[iv]. Finally, despite the fast growth in a few modern Hindu movements and cults, such as the Sai Baba movement and the Swaminarayan (BAPS) organization, outside India Hinduism is mostly popular among Indian expatriates and has made negligible converts otherwise. This does not, of course include practitioners of individual components such as Yoga.