The philosophy of Prāṇāgni
Prāṇāgni, “the fire of life”, is a fitting name for a project whose premise is that a temple is a living body rather than a standing monument. The Śāstras treat a temple as alive only while two things are kept: prāṇa, the breath of the installed deity, and agni, the sacred fire and the ordered worship that feeds it.
The two words are old companions in the tradition. The Taittirīya Upaniṣad (3.3) records the seer’s finding that “prāṇo brahmeti vyajānāt”, life-breath is Brahma. Agni constitutes a paramount space within the Śāstric tradition, for every officiation involves the presence of fire. It would not be an overstatement to say that there is no Hindu civilization without the mention of fire.
Both of these elements represent the vitality of a human, as stated by Śrī Bhagavān in Gītā 4.27.
This project seeks to accentuate that point of restoring the lost vitality of the Hindu society, through a series of temple restorations. But why only temples?
The temple as a Person
In the Hindu tradition the first principle of a temple is said to be the heart where “Brahma-pura”, or a “small lotus-shaped city” is said to be the house of the Self; Chāndogya (8.1.1). This eternal principle as propounded by Śruti, is manifested in the Āgamic texts where the building tradition makes the same identification in stone. The Śilpa and Āgamic texts describe the temple as Prāsāda-puruṣa, the Person who is the building: the foundation, plinth, walls, tower and finial are likened to the feet, legs, torso, neck and head, and the sanctum (garbhagṛha, “womb-house”) is the heart or head where the deity dwells. In Matsya Purāṇa (252-53) adhyāya, among other texts such as in Bṛhat Saṃhitā (51 chapter) detailed procedure of consecration of the divine man as in the body of temple is emphasized.
Therefore for restoration not only the physical aspect has to be in concordance to the ascribed measures and procedures of Āgamas, but also more importantly the ritualistic aspect which draws the grace of the deity, as well as channelise the ūrjā of the deity and the sanctified area for the benefit of all.
The merit of restoring a temple
It is a matter of great fortune for those who are willing to participate in such a glorious aim of restoration of the temples which served as the cornerstone of Hindu civilization. There was a very strong reason for why the invaders repeatedly attacked and tried to desecrate the holy sites of Hindus. Because they were not only bent on destroying the wondrous architecture and the magnificent heritage, but also to kill the very soul of Hindus in the form of fire that burned in the temples. Prāṇāgni is your civilizational call to undo the wrongs that have been perpetuated, but also to atone for our own negligence.
In Manu (4.226) Iṣṭa and Pūrta are said to be the cause begetting wealth that is imperishable, when done with faith. Faith is the most important component as without faith nothing can be achieved. Baudhāyana (1.5.64) calls faithlessness as the worst sin. Nārada in his Smṛti classifies temple building and restoration as a Pūrta. In Agni Purāṇa (38th adhyāya) it is said “चिकीर्षोर्देवधाम आदि सहस्रजनिपापनुत्”, that building of a temple results in absolution of sins from thousands of births. Further in extolment it is said that, “one temple leads to Svarga, 3 to Brahmā, 5 to Viṣṇu, 8 to Mahādeva, and 16 to enjoyment and liberation.”
Worship that must not lapse
Now what has been invoked has to be served. The Āgamas therefore pair pratiṣṭhā with a binding discipline of nitya-pūjā (daily worship) and treat its lapse as a fault needing expiation (prāyaścitta). A broad family of Āgamic passages declares that where worship in a temple stops, harm comes to the village and the ruler.
The Āgamas organise temple worship in three layers: nitya (daily), naimittika (occasional, tied to a festival, eclipse or special day) and kāmya (offered for a particular wish). The first layer is the load-bearing one, and it is where most decayed temples have failed.
Daily worship
Śaiva temples following the Kāmika and Kāraṇa traditions commonly keep a six-fold schedule (ṣaṭkāla-pūjā) from dawn through the night. The Pāñcarātra tradition organises the day into five movements: abhigamana (approach), upādāna (gathering what is needed), ijyā (worship), svādhyāya (study) and yoga (meditation). Vaikhānasa temples keep a daily ārādhana. Each tradition is exacting about timing, ritualistic purity of priest (his sadācāra and Nitya karmas such as Sandhyāvandan etc), and offerings, and the exact sequence of services, in this ṣoḍaśopacāra-pūjā is there in all the traditions.
Festivals
The utsava cycle, with its processions of the festival image (utsava-bēra), car festivals and the annual brahmotsava, takes the deity out of the sanctum to the people. The Āgamas lay out the full rubric, including flag-hoisting, the days of the festival, and the concluding bath.
Expiation
The manuals also provide for failure. Prāyaścitta and doṣa-parihāra are prescribed for lapses such as a missed service, a breach of purity, or damage to the image, and ritual correction is part of the system, not an afterthought. This matters to the project because most temples it will meet have lapses that need to be set right in the proper order before ordinary worship can resume.
What this requires
Daily worship needs a trained arcaka or bhaṭṭācārya, the right materials, a steady income to pay for them, and a supervisor who knows the text. These four needs, and not the building, are what usually decide whether a temple lives.
The temple and Hindu society
Now apart from generating immense ‘Apūrva’ for the individuals, and for the society at large, this project also seeks to become a moving factor for the strengthening of Hindu society. In our view temples are a kind of fortress for Hindu society. Manu’s (8.15) best-known maxim is the charter for the whole idea: “Dharma, when destroyed, destroys; dharma, when protected, protects.” A society that guards its institutions of dharma is itself guarded by them. The temple is the most visible of these institutions. In the Arthaśāstra (2.4) Kauṭilya gives a detailed description of a city’s design, in which he says that the temple of a deity who is the presiding power of the said region, in form of Kuladevatā, Sthānadevatā et cetera, occupies the central spot of the urban structure.
The historical record of the great temples shows what this meant in practice. Inscriptions of the Chola period, for example at Thanjavur, list endowments for priests, musicians, dancers, lamp-lighting, gardeners, accountants and artisans. Other inscriptions record that temples ran schools of Vedic and other learning (Ennayiram and Tribhuvani are standard examples) and that temples maintained hospitals, one of the best known being recorded at Tirumukkudal. Temples were also centres of agriculture and credit, since their lands and funds were managed on behalf of the community. This is a historical observation and not a Śāstric rule, but the Śāstras provided the ideal that these institutions served. Thus, there can be classified 6 elements of a temple, or functions: Spiritual, educational, charitable, economic, artistic, and social. It was the place where people from across the societal spectrum united for something greater than themselves.
What ought to be done
- Survey and identification Recording each targeted temple’s deity, history, the tradition it belongs to, customs, and the condition it is currently in.
- Structural restoration If needed the sthāpatya of the site has to be put in order as well for facilitation of the temple’s functions.
- Ritual restoration A proper arcaka needs to be put in charge of the place, who will be responsible, in return for a fair stipend from us as well as inculcated support from the locals. Thereby a regular worship on the basis of Āgamas would be started.
- Governance A local committee of dedicated Āstikas under a priest who would oversee the functions the temple now performs, whilst being in constant contact with Ramdoot team for aligning their initiatives with the orders of the Foremost Seat of Sanātana.