[00:00:00] We are having a very transactional relationship with the temple. You go there, you ask for something or you say thank you for something. These are the only two activities left to us. The purpose of pilgrimage is to... Tourism and pilgrimage is absolutely diametrically opposite. Kashi is something that I would say is the soul of India. I'm yet to meet somebody who's not felt special in Kashi. Kashi literally means the city of light, something that illuminated the rest of the world,
[00:00:29] where death is... How do you think the temple going experience has changed over time? Am I going because all my ancestors have gone and it's a family tradition to go? Or am I just going because I need to post on social media? Today on the podcast, we welcome writer, traveler and storyteller Anuradha Goyal ji, a voice who has spent years exploring the soul of India through journeys, heritage and human connection. Namaste ma'am, welcome to Bharatvaarta again.
[00:00:59] Thank you so much for making the time. Namaste Roshan and thank you for having me back. It's always a pleasure to have a conversation with you. Yeah, I think we spoke maybe five years ago. Yes. Today we're going to talk about temples, the significance of temples, the experience of Goyano temple and how it varies, you know, between the length and the breadth of the country. I thought to begin with, I mean, I would love to understand your Kashi experience. You know, you've been there for a couple of months recently.
[00:01:28] You've been visiting since when you were a child. Yes. So how has that experience varied? And what is that unique thing about Kashi, the city and, you know, the temple as well? Kashi is the microcosm of India. Kashi is everything that exists anywhere in India spiritually, has a footprint in Kashi. That's why whole of India wants to go to Kashi.
[00:01:56] And spiritually, it has a magnetic quality to it which attracts spiritual seekers from across the world. From across all kinds of divides, I'm yet to meet somebody who's not felt special in Kashi. So Kashi has, and it is the oldest continuously living city in the world.
[00:02:24] It is the continuously visited city in the world. It fell at the crossroads of Uttarpath and Dakshanpath. And these were our major big trade routes. One running from north to south and one running from east to west. And they met at Kashi. So you can imagine that this was a place where people from all across the country or even outside the country met.
[00:02:53] So this was a point of intersection where a lot of ideas would have been exchanged, where knowledge has been pursued since ages. So while we today think of it as the city of ghats and city of temples, at the core of it, it's the city of knowledge. City of knowledge, where the biggest of our scholars have learned and taught. You'll find even today that
[00:03:22] Indic knowledge system books, you know, our ancient scriptures, mostly are still published from Banaras. Some of the most dedicated dharmic publications come from Banaras. It continues to be that city. And that's why Madan Mohan Malviyeji set up BHU. And how beautifully he set up. Just like the city is in the shape of a chandra, a moon, he created the university campus in the same format
[00:03:52] with a beautiful temple in the center of it. With the tallest shikara. So it has always been a city of knowledge, a city of light. Kashi literally means the city of light. Something that illuminated the rest of the world where death is welcomed, where death is on par with life. You can see death and life coexisting from the waters of Ganga. 24 by 7.
[00:04:21] So it is the oldest cosmopolitan city. You'll find every community living there. You'll find a mattha or a small temple or a shivilling from every community there. So it's a microcosm. Of course, there is something very basically eternal about that city, which does not change. You see the people of Banaras. And to me, at this point in time,
[00:04:51] the most unique part of Kashi is its people. You know, there are very few places I have been to where people are in love with their city. People of Kashi are in love with their city. And that shows. They welcome you. They welcome people from everywhere. They're used to having visitors from around the world all the time. But at the same time, they don't leave their Kashi Pana or Banaras Pana ever.
[00:05:19] They have this Kairadam attitude, but with a very warm heart. They will welcome you, but they will say, this is how I am. You know, you see it in the food. You literally get every... I get my best pizza in Banaras. Okay. So, you get every kind of food. You get every kind. For example, industries. There are about 20 odd products in Banaras which are GI-tacked.
[00:05:50] Only from Banaras. From silk sadis to wooden craft to stone craft to glass beads. So, all kinds of things have flourished in Kashi. It was not... I mean, though the visible face of it remains spiritual, but it had been a big trade center and it continues to be even today. Silk is not grown anywhere close to Banaras, but it has got the biggest silk industry. Right.
[00:06:20] In the world, probably. So, Kashi is a lot of things and you keep visiting, you keep exploring the layers, you keep discovering new things, you keep discovering the new angle to the same thing. So, Kashi is something that I would say is the soul of India. Right. You know, and each one of us is a part of it. Right. Yeah, wonderfully articulated. I mean, I certainly
[00:06:49] have experienced all, if not most of these, including the people. I mean, the last time I was in Kashi was during the Kumbh. And, you know, despite the traffic, despite the chaos, you had people stepping forward and actually being generous and kind both with their time and resources as well. So, it's something rare to see in this day and age. Oh, yes. Even today, you can go to a small, it's full of small eateries. Forget the few ones
[00:07:18] which have been made popular by the internet. Yeah. You go into the small lanes, eat somewhere. If you step up and say, I don't have money, they'll say, okay, go. They will not question you. Right. Right. You know, so that is, and that used to be the nature of whole of India. Right. Which is now visible only in some of these Deerthakshetras. So, I hope at some point in time we revert to these ways of our ancestors.
[00:07:48] What is it about Kashi that makes it the way it is? Right. I mean, is it something physical? It is something beyond our understanding because this magnetic quality that you mentioned, I mean, it is so tangible. Right. The first time I visited, there was something stirring about the place. Right. I cannot describe it in words. I felt like I had been here before and I felt like at home, you know, for lack of a better way to phrase it. Right. And I have heard
[00:08:17] similar experiences from a lot of others. Everybody. Anybody who has visited. What is the conditions of Kashi that makes it that way? Okay. So, I will tell you to a lesser extent, to a much lesser extent, you will also experience this in the cities like Bombay, in New York, London, you will experience. These are all cosmopolitan cities. Where people from all over the place have come or they keep coming even if they don't stay. Now, imagine, Kashi has been
[00:08:47] seeing this kind of an inflow and exchange for thousands of years. Okay. Continuously. So, it is used to, like I said, a person who lives in Kashi, he is very open to you coming and visiting. We have never heard of them saying don't come. Kashi is only for Kashi Vases. They know it belongs to everybody. It is the city of Shiva. Shiva belongs to everybody. Kashi belongs to everybody.
[00:09:17] But at the same time, the way we are, we are what we are and we love this city the way it is. Right. I have, apart from Kashi, I have just met a couple of villages, one of them in Goa and a couple of villages, somewhere remote villages, where people are in love with their village. You go and say, tell me something about the village and they will say, this is the most beautiful village in the world. What else is there to know?
[00:09:46] That kind of love from their own people is what makes the city vibrant. Because people living there love it. You go to any social media platform, especially Twitter, you will see most people are cribbing about their cities. My city doesn't have this. My city doesn't have this. You'll see Kashi Vases on Twitter also telling you something good about Kashi. Right. Even if it's 45 degrees,
[00:10:16] 50 degrees temperature, they'll say, Ganga Maiya hai na. Right. So, that's an attitude. Right. You know, that I care a damn, a carefree kind of an attitude, a fakkad attitude, what we call in Hindi. That is what makes it very endearing. Right. Right. For most of us, when we visit Kashi, we of course, go to the Vishwanaji Mandir and maybe a few other guards and the ganga guards and so on. But, you know, you've spoken about
[00:10:45] these hidden padhyatras and so on. Right. Can you talk about some of the lesser known aspects of Kashi as well? Oh, you'll have to do a full episode on that or a few episodes on that. Maybe just cover the highlights. Okay. So, every Teeth Kshetra in India and Kashi is one of the most important Teeth Kshetras has these parikramas which is circumambulation that you do in a clockwise fashion. So, these circumambulations can be as small as, you know, half a kilometer,
[00:11:15] one kilometer going around a temple. It's typically what we do Pradakshina around a temple. That's also a parikrama. And then there are bigger parikramas. Typically, you have pancha koshi, chodha koshi and larger chodha koshi parikramas around the Teeth Kshetra. So, Kashi also has many of them. Many, many of them. Some of the ones which I have done and which is the most important one is pancha koshi. So, it is about
[00:11:45] 75 kilometers. It starts from Manikarnika Ghat and then you go to Assi Ghat and then you go around the Kashi Kshetra. Okay. They say there were lakhs of temples within that and as it used to be there were no toilets or no places to stay on your right hand side. Everything was on your left hand side. So, the area covered on your right hand side was the sacred place
[00:12:14] and you see many, many, many temples there. In fact, one of the oldest known temple called Kardamishwar Mahadev temple is the first padau or the first place where you stop on this yatra and take a bath. There's a huge tank and then there is a Chandi temple and then you keep on going and then you come back to where you started from and that's where it finished. So, this is one of them. Then, as per the deity,
[00:12:44] you have these Parikrama paths. For example, I have been on Ashtah Bhehra Yatra. So, it's a pretty long yatra which goes across the city. So, you start from one in a sequence and then you move to one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight Bhairavas. Then, I've done Saptarishi Yatra. So, all the Saptarishis have established their own small temples and they are literally small temples. They may be less than the space you and I are occupying at this point in time but they're there. They still
[00:13:14] mark the the Shivalinga is there marking the presence of a Rishi. So, I have been on a lot of Devi Yatras there. So, I've done Navagori Yatra which is nine Gauri temples. Navadurga so nine types of Durga temples. Dashmah Vidya temples and a lot of other temples which are then Devis also have their own Kshetra like Durga Mandir has her own Durga Kshetra.
[00:13:44] There's an area called Laksa which is associated with Lakshmi. There is an area called Kamachha which is associated with Kamakshi. So, there are a lot of these within Kashi you'll find every other Tirtha of India. So, it's said that Kashi is standing on the Trishul of Mahadev. So, if there are three points on the Trishul so the middle one is
[00:14:13] Vishveshwar which is Kashi Vishwanath. The other one is Omkare which is now in a very small state. It's actually within the Kabristan. It's in the middle of a Kabristan but the small temple still exists. And the third is Kedarna temple. So, these are the three temples that mark the Trishul of Mahadev. Right. But Kashi has also grown. So, if we
[00:14:43] look at the historical records then the Kashi that we see of the Ghats is a relatively recent construction. The original Kashi used to be towards the northernmost part of the Ghats, Rajghat and around. And the rest of the area was what was called Anand Anand Kanan or Anand Van of Mahadev. So, if you read the stories of Shiva and Parvati, you will say that they were in their Anand Van or Anand Kanan. That was
[00:15:13] the whole area. It was probably a one or a forest at some point in time. Right. I remember one of your presentations where you were talking about genealogy and how your ancestry is recorded at some of these pilgrimage centers. So, in that sense, Kashi was not just a spiritual center but also important socially, economically as well. Can you talk a little bit about
[00:15:42] the significance of those things? The fact that your ancestors from many generations ago would have visited the place, would have spent some time, maybe donated and so on and how that ties into the present day as well. So, there are two ways. One is that you work with your Kula Devata Kshetra. So, you typically build a temple there and then you have maybe a Dharamshala or something and you continue to maintain that
[00:16:12] as an inherited responsibility and you maintain a relationship with that Devata. You build a Kula Devata Kshetra in Kashi? No, wherever. Wherever your Kula Devata is. Second is your ancestral records are typically maintained across India wherever the last rites are performed in your family. Right. Okay. So, for example, for a lot of people in Karnataka, it could be Gokarna, which is where a lot
[00:16:42] of last rites are performed. For my family, it's actually Haridwar, where we go and do the last Ashti Visarjan is done. So, you can go anytime and update your records. All the births in the family, all the deaths in the family, all the weddings in the family, all the movements in the family. Anybody has moved from one place to another, somebody has moved from outside India,
[00:17:11] all those things, what are you doing, what kind of profession are you engaged in, your children, everything. And this can be irrespective of your background. So, traditionally, every family had a Kulpurohit who would maintain the records. Okay. And his generations would maintain records of your generations. And anybody in your family can go there and update records. But typically
[00:17:41] people went when they went for last rites for Asthi Visarjan, they would go and record that we came here for the Asthi Visarjan of so and so person and whatever updates have happened in the family since the last visit. And this became a sociological data. So, for example, when I looked at my family records, which went back about 150 years, one, it is amazing how they pull
[00:18:11] out your records. You know, it's faster than what an Excel sheet can do. They pull it out and they write it in their coded language. But sometimes they also, at least my Kulpurohit, they allowed us to write something. So I could see something that my great-great grandfather has written. Something what my grandfather had written. and the language they were using, you know, their handwritten notes, and what all they recorded. You can get your
[00:18:40] family records for five, six, seven, depending on how long you have preserved them. And these records are maintained at most pilgrimage places, be it Haridwar, Kurukshetra, Purush, Pushkar, Prayag, Kashi, Gokarna, all the Tirthas on Narmada, Godavari, Nasik, all these places. Right. Right. Wherever you go for Asthi Veserjan, typically at a river. Right.
[00:19:09] So there you maintain your records. We jumped headlong into Kashi, but I want to take a step back and look at some of these fundamentals. Because obviously the temple going experience is not new for a lot of the folks who are watching. It's somewhat mundane. Right. I mean, we have been doing this since childhood, but I don't think we understand the significance of some of these rituals and traditions and so on. So I would love to double click on a few of these things. Right. So first of all, you know, what is the purpose of
[00:19:39] a temple, a mandir or devasthanam in Dharma? And why are we supposed to go to these temples periodically? So what is a temple? Temple is the abode of a deity. It's his home where he or she lives. Okay. And this is a home that we create for them to be close to us. Right. God as a concept in India is Nirguna Nirakar. It's called Brahman,
[00:20:08] which cannot be defined. In mathematical terms, it's infinity. That infinity is the source of all the finite things. So from the infinity comes everything that's finite. Everything that we see in the universe, in this room, is finite. It was born at certain point in time and it will die at certain point in time, whether it's living or non-living. But it all came from the source of it is infinity.
[00:20:38] And that infinity is God for us. We cannot define, nobody can define, not science, not spirituality, not philosophy. You can't define, you can just understand what it is or experience it. But for a common person to experience it closer to us, we've created a human form or an anthropomorphic form of the God and we see the God in our image
[00:21:08] and we put it in a temple or we consecrate it in a temple, we do the Pran Pratishtha so that it's alive and then it lives like you and me. So a God, if you look at the daily rituals of a temple, the deity wakes up just like we wake up. It has its morning prasad, bhog, something is offered. Then it has its daily bath, it goes to the
[00:21:37] shringar, it gets up and then it you know in the temples which have a bala swaroop of the deity as a child swaroop, they also go to play, they are given food that is given to children. So we imagine them in a certain swaroop and to be close to us. Now the temples served two purposes. If you see in South India, we still see it a lot in the villages. In bigger places, I think
[00:22:07] Dwarka is a great example of how it is. The temple used to be in the middle of the town and everything revolved around the temple. So if you are going from one place to another, you will pass by the temple. So the presence of the divine was always around you. You knew that you are in sight of the deity and deity is in your sight. So if you are feeling a loss of strength or you need strength, you can look at the deity
[00:22:37] and get that strength. At the same time, if you are tempted to do something that you don't want to do or you shouldn't be doing, you could feel the gauge of the deity that would stop you from doing that. So it was like a balancing factor which balanced a lot of things for you from a spiritual perspective. Socially, this was the common place where everybody met. People visited temples, that's where they met. We
[00:23:06] didn't have the concept of clubhouses, ports, hotels, nothing. Everything was a temple. Everything was a temple. All festivals were held at temples. All weddings were held at temples. Any kind of celebration was held at temples. You want to meet somebody, you met at temple. You want to volunteer, do some volunteer work, you did it at temples. You want to teach people, you use the premises as a school. You want to run a
[00:23:36] dispensary, you use the premises, you want to pass judgments, you want to do your panchayat meetings. They were all done in the temple. It was a multi-purpose place where everything could be done and it belonged to everybody. Economically, this is more from an agrarian society perspective, if you had access, you had a great bumper crop and you have a lot more than what you can consume, you gave it to the temple to be distributed to people
[00:24:06] who don't have. If you had a bad year, you don't have enough to eat, the temple would open its grain and give it to you. It kind of balanced between people who had more than what they needed and people who did not have enough or when people had enough and when people did not have enough in time and space. It kind of created a balance. Culturally, it nurtured all kinds of art forms. There are 64 art forms
[00:24:35] mentioned in our scriptures and all of them were nurtured in the temples. We did not have the concept of hiring professionals to do things. Everybody did whatever the decoration or arrangements that were needed to be made which gave everybody some basic skills in life and mental peace. Today, we are trying to sell art as something
[00:25:05] that can help you deal with mental issues. But imagine every festival or every weekday or every Akadishi or every Amavasya, you were doing something in a temple. You were creating a rangoli, you were weaving flowers, you were making baskets, you were making food. Food also came with its own requirements in terms of what goes when with what festival, dressing up the deity, stitching the dresses, making jewelry, making a lot of things.
[00:25:35] 64 of them are mentioned and if you actually look across scriptures, they all add up to much more than 64 as well. Right. Okay, which involved entertainment as well, you know, song, dance, magic tricks, you know, poetry reading, singing, everything. Right. You know, so all that was performed by the people who were involved with the temple and not paid artists who would
[00:26:04] come and perform. In fact, one of my dreams for temples is that, you know, you see this automatic music machine, you know, that tells me that there are no devotees who can play music. Ideally, it should be the devotees going and playing music. It should be live music. That machine tells us that no devotee is available to play music and nothing can replace the music that is played with a bhavana or with
[00:26:34] an emotion of devotion. Right. how do you think, you know, I think you covered a bit of it, but how do you think the temple going experience has changed over time? You know, what are we missing today? I do see that locally there are lots of people at temples and so on, especially during festival days and whatever, but what is the core aspect of the temple going experience that we're missing in modern times? So,
[00:27:02] we are having a very transactional relationship with the temple. You know, you go there, you ask for something or you say thank you for something. These are the only two activities left to us. There is no other relationship. I don't participate in the temple activities. I have no say in what will be celebrated, when and how. I have no say in doing anything for the temples. I do see
[00:27:32] a small change with this bhajan clubbing and bhajan things. So, I am a part of a bhajan group where we meet once in a month in one of the small temples in Koramangala and we sing bhajans for a couple of hours, which is just bhajans, nothing else. You just sit there. So, over a period of time, I see all the people who come regularly, they are developing a relationship with the temple. So, once I went and I saw there is no tulsi plant, it's a Ram temple, so I said there is no tulsi plant. So, we went and
[00:28:01] we planted a tulsi plant there. So, there are a lot of things that happen by default when you are invested in the temple. Right now, it belongs to somebody, it is something, just because God is there and I have inherited that value of visiting temple, I visit temple. Right. It has to be, especially with your neighborhood temples. Right. How should one consider their own sampradayas and so on when thinking
[00:28:31] about what temples to go to and how to perform puja and so on? I understand this is a very broad question, but if you can sort of distill it down to what someone can practically do. So, first of all, let's look at the temples that you need to visit. You don't need to visit all the temples. Even if you want to, I professionally visit them, like I'm studying them, so I visit them, I think I just scratched the surface. There are so many types of so many different temples. So, you can't visit. Even if you are
[00:29:00] trying to do 12 Jotirlings, 51 Shakti Peets, you will be running around. There is no need for you to do all of them. No scripture has ever said you must do 12 Jotirlings. They've just said these are 12 Jotirlings. You have to go, nobody has said. At least not to the best of my knowledge, I could be wrong. The temple is important for you. the temple at your home, because that's the temple that is
[00:29:30] personally for you. Nobody else can come to that temple except your immediate family. Next, your neighborhood temple, because you live in the Kshetra of that Devata, wherever you are living. It need not be your native place. Wherever you are living, the temple within let's say one kilometer radius of your house, there must be many temples, so choose one temple of your Ishtadevata, the Devata you are closest to. That one
[00:30:00] temple you need to visit, build a relationship with that temple. See how we can best utilize that temple, how we can best beautify that temple, how we can make it like a temple where you feel happy when you go there. Try to meet people there. You can meet them. Maybe you should someday record a podcast in a temple. So do that. There are a lot of things missing, especially in our urban
[00:30:30] temples. Most of them do not have a one or a upahone. Every deity has some of their favorite trees and flowers. So can you plant those trees? Even if you put pots in, do that. Can you ensure that all the flowers offered to that deity come from the upahone of that deity and you don't have to buy, you don't have to have a flower that
[00:30:59] has traveled 500 kilometers to be in your temple. Now this works at multiple levels. It ensures that you have biodiversity close to you. It ensures that you will have flora, fauna. The moment you have plants, you have birds, you have the whole ecosystem builds around it. The same goes for trees. If it is a Shiva temple, can you have a Bilvapatra tree? If you have a Vishnu
[00:31:29] temple, can you have Kadamba tree? You get a list of trees that are dear to that deity, whoever is the deity of that temple. Then a temple is not complete without a water body. It's called Tirtha. You see every ancient temple had a water body next to it. Or the temple itself was next to a water body. Does a well count? Yes, it does. If you see even Bangalore lakes, like this lake, Belandoor, Iblur,
[00:31:58] Agara, all of them had temples next to them. Some of them still exist. A road has come between the temple and the lake, but it's there. Every temple has a water body. It can be a well, it can be a lake, it can be a step well, a water tank. Even if you make a small pond and put some
[00:32:28] lotus plants or some plants there, it should work. In good old days, these temple tanks worked as a great water recharging facility. They were rainwater harvesting facilities. they also kept our cities cool. If there's a huge water body, the heat is absorbed. You see these big step wells and you see the corridors
[00:32:58] around it to sit. You have a natural AC. I don't know in the urban areas if we can go back to those, but you can definitely ensure a small water body, plant some lotus flowers there and that should do. There should be a presence of water there basically. So some of these things, can you make a small group which will go sing morning, evening or at least on festivals? It is
[00:33:27] a ready-made platform for any upcoming musician, artisans. Just go and play in the temple and you are exposing yourself to all possible potential opportunities. And you are singing for the God. And there are many other things that can be done. But these are some of the things that we can at least start it. And actually the step one should be to clean temples. There are
[00:33:57] not many clean temples. So step one is can the temple be cleaned? Can it be any other issue that the temple is facing if you can help solve that? That's how you can get involved. When we talk about temples, we think of this Agama Shastras and also we think of consecration as a process, a method as well. So you can't just build a temple anywhere and in any form. It has to follow certain rules and prescriptions and so on.
[00:34:26] So how important are these? And also I find it fascinating that it has been passed on through the ages. For us, temples are a process that we can replicate. It's very scientific in that sense. And it's not like a historical monument or a certain holy place and so on. So it's tied to a place, tied to a particular time. But it's a living breathing entity as you mentioned. Absolutely. So a temple cannot be built randomly anywhere.
[00:34:56] It should ideally be built, the land should be correct. There are Shilpa Shastras that mention all the details about how to select a land, where to put it. Our temples were also astronomical observatories. So a lot of them you will see they are aligned to the direction of the sun. You know, you go to the Shringeri Vidya Shankar temple and you see these pillars where the sun rays fall on
[00:35:26] the pillar of the zodiac in which the sun currently is. So it's an astronomical and a lot of those temples. There are temples designed where on certain days the sunlight falls directly on the deity and on a normal day you go and you cannot even figure out how does the sun rays reach there. And there were also observatories which observed the sky. So it has to have the alignment with that depending on the deity it has to
[00:35:56] face a certain direction. Then the consecration is a one time process or a once in a 12 years process. So the first time when you set up it has to be set up so that there is an energy channelizing. So you are putting you are doing prana prati meaning you are inviting the prana or you are making the deity come alive. So till the time it may be a stone idol till it is not consecrated or till
[00:36:26] prana prati is not done. Once the prana prati is done it's a living entity it has prana it has energy and that energy is exchanged between the deity and you and that energy has to be maintained and how is that energy maintained one it is maintained through the people who visit and pray there. You know one of my friends very beautifully put it said that in a place in a sacred place the least that people
[00:36:55] do is say thank you or ask for something. So you are letting go of your ego in both the cases whether you are asking or whether you are grateful you are letting go of your ego. So that itself makes the place very potent you know when people let go of their ego and people bow down naturally. In Sanatan you do it every day through puja to chanting
[00:37:24] through the Vedic mantras that you chant you increase the energy of it and then there are in Agamas you have the processes where you keep recharging that energy so every 12 years you do the recharging there are brahmhot savams you know you hear of them the temple brahmhot sav is there that brahmhot sav is nothing but recharging of that energy if the temple is lying
[00:37:54] empty or unvorshipped and not in practice for a long period of time the energy vanishes like it has from lot of our temples which have not been practiced but there is a process where you can re-consecrate it rebuild it re-consecrate it so those are processes defined to manage energy for the modern audience right some of these rituals have become
[00:38:24] samuhic in the sense that it's become more I mean I don't know what the literal translation secularized in some sense right in the sense that you know one of the pandits what he told me was there was a particular puja that I was supposed to do and I said hey there is this shetra where you know it's known for it and he said yeah but it's it's it's become consumerized it's become mass ticket right I mean they do you know initially it was supposed to be done for a person at a time now they're doing it hundreds of people
[00:38:53] at a time and it's it doesn't quite hold the same vitality as it was right how do you think we can solve this you know some your neighborhood temple temple the next is your kula devta temple your native kshetra devta temple
[00:39:23] and your tirthas associated with your ishth devta okay so in that process if you follow this you will be you'll have a bunch of temples that you need to visit okay so you don't need to go the problem today I see one of course the travel transportation is easy so I can go anytime anywhere you'll find yeah right and affordability affluence is ensuring that
[00:39:53] everybody is just buys tickets and reaches there you'll find accounts of kashi visits in many many south indian homes where you know they used to close all their life accounts then do everything and then go to kashi not knowing if they will come back or not and if they came back they were literally treated with reverence people would come and touch their feet because they've come from kashi but today kashi is like just take a flight
[00:40:23] come back and then keep going so you don't need to do that and you need to ask yourself why do I want to go you literally need to ask why do I need to go today everybody is going to kamakya do you even know who kamakya is has she been worshipped in your family lineage do you have a lineage connection with her or do you have a strong call
[00:40:53] from her I'm sure everybody feels they have but the point is and if you don't get to spend time there then there is no point it used to be said teerthi atra should be used meet and teerthi atra is not just visiting that one temple teerthi atra is going and meeting the sadhus sons
[00:41:22] knowledgeable people there other teerthi atris there meeting and learning going inwards getting knowledge teerthi atra was never about visiting that one temple why do you think there are thousands of temples in each teerthi it was never about that one temple and today we've made it all about that one temple but how do you
[00:41:52] recognize what temple to visit I mean of course the prescription you offered in terms of kshetra and kula devata and ishtadevata aside from that some of these more significant places right I mean how do you know significant let's say historically significant culturally significant places I mean I myself I was in Assam some time back I was in Guwahati and I went into the Kamakaya temple
[00:42:21] and it was I mean easily perhaps the most powerful experience I've had right so much so that I was thinking you know I mean was it the right time for me to like actually visit the temple or not right for most of us who are let's say lay people how do you know it's time to visit Kashi or Kedarnath you will know you will know I mean there is no framework there is no formula here
[00:42:51] you will know you follow these basic principles of where you need to go you need to go to your neighborhood temple you need to go to your Kuladevta temple you need to go to the Teerthas associated with your Ishtadevah so if you are a Devi worshipper if you are a worshipper of a certain form of Devi then Kamakhya is for you but not everybody needs to go right otherwise our ancestors
[00:43:20] would have made those huge temples why did they make such small temples right and go and when you go go with ample time to be there for some time sit there for some time do these Parikramas so for example recently I was in Omkar I spent half a day doing a Parikrama of the mountain if you
[00:43:50] take it as a cardio exercise you can do it in 45 minutes one hour but to know the place you have to spend time there and if it was not this hot I would have probably spent a little more time so I'm saying don't be in a rush or don't travel with a checklist you know so many done and so many needs to be done it's more like a checklist thing I went there I did
[00:44:20] this I came back yeah right what did you do what do you go there for go there to get the essence of that place I mean I used to be my biggest thing that I miss in Kashi today is that even 12-13 years ago if you went to the ghats of Banaras there was no commercial activity there was hardly any commercial activity even if you get if you got something to eat it was
[00:44:50] very basic as basic as ground nuts and chana and chai today you have the whole momos and maggie stalls full and whom have they replaced they've replaced all the sadhus earlier the ghats used to be full of sadhus you could sit on any ghats and talk to sadhus listen to their experiences listen to their knowledge and if you have to eat
[00:45:19] momos and maggie you can eat wherever you are you don't need to go to Kashi for that I guess it has to be a more deliberate experience in the sense that any of these shetras or whatever you have to go with the intent of absorbing the place experience you have to ask yourself why am I going am I going because everybody else is going am I going because I have a deep inner calling to go am I
[00:45:49] going because all my ancestors have gone and it's a family tradition to go or am I just going because I need to post on social media I mean I have seen you know from the time I have started talking about temples from saying visit the temple now I am saying don't visit every temple I have seen my trajectory move from there to there because temples are so crowded and it's it's actually
[00:46:18] a big risk the way they are crowded I mean I'm sure it's an Ishwar Kripa that no major problem has happened but it's a huge risk yeah I mean we were talking about some of these issues before we started recording which is the sheer logistics of it right the way it is managed the way crowds are managed and so on I am actually routinely surprised that at some of these bigger places we don't have more mishaps right again
[00:46:48] as you said I have written about it I used to write a column for New Indian Express and I have written about this that it is actually a miracle that no big mishap has happened the crowd management and I would also blame the thousands we have to understand that you go to Vrindavan everybody in Delhi it's just 2-3 yards from Delhi
[00:47:18] people just pick up on weekends they just pick up the car and go there and the amount of crowd it's insane insane and you don't even get darshan there you get half a second you hardly get to spend time inside although I would also say at the same time the kshetra itself is full of energy anywhere in that kshetra you get
[00:47:48] the same energy you don't have to go exactly into the garbhagre to get the energy and if you are surrounded by too many people how much energy are you taking from there what kind of an energy exchange are you engaging in if you are worried about not being trampled upon then there is very little focus or devotion in that sense and also temples where ticketing has been introduced the so called VIP ticket I see
[00:48:17] that those temples now have the temple management or the people who are there they have been incentivized to stop the temple when the rush is not there so they allow the rush to build up so that more and more people will go and buy the tickets so you know so there are multiple angles to this problem but I'm saying as a devotee I talk as a devotee
[00:48:47] you don't need to go to every possible temple you can go to the temples that plan out a detailed visit when you can spend ample quality time at the teertha get the essence of teertha the energy of teertha that you carry back with you right one thing you've reiterated is that temple visits are not tourism
[00:49:17] right you have to go with the shraddha and there needs to be a certain calling for you to attend this right at the same time I also feel that these temples have to be made somewhat accessible there needs to be some kind of amenities as well even if not the kind of stuff that you talked about where you have Maggie and Momo at every counter right but I do feel roads have to be better right I do feel that
[00:49:46] logistics of getting in and out of the temple needs to be better managed I do feel that hygiene cleanliness those things have to be taken care of the food has to be of a certain standard let's say and those things right so how do we balance you know these aspects purely from a modernity perspective while also you know not promoting it like a tourism spot right so first of all let me address what is the difference between tourism and pilgrimage okay in tourism
[00:50:16] we go to enjoy you know in Hindi we would say we go for bhog you know we want to let our senses go out let them lose and let them enjoy whatever they can see whatever you want to see all our senses are designed to see outside to engage what is outside our eyes see outside our ears hear what is outside they don't hear what is inside our nose smells what is outside our skin feels what is outside you don't
[00:50:46] know how the skin feels inside right so in a tourism trip you let lose you know you lose track of what you eat how you sleep when you sleep you just want to enjoy you want to engage in sensual pleasure you want your senses to enjoy pilgrimage is exact opposite of it you want to close your senses so that you can hear inside you can see inside you can
[00:51:16] go inside yourself and to go inside you must shut up these organs which are designed to see outside or designed to engage outside the purpose of pilgrimage is to travel outside travel out of your own comfort zone and travel inside for that you the Hindi word is Indriya Nigraha you control your senses so from this perspective the purpose of tourism
[00:51:45] and pilgrimage is absolutely diametrically opposite right you know so now you have to understand now people say we can do both I'm asking you can you go to a party place and pray forget about your religion forget about anything can you go to sit where the party is going on can you pray there I'm asking you not conducive I mean can you do that do you think it's
[00:52:15] possible for you to sit where a party is going on sit in the middle of it and pray it's not the right environment it's not the right environment so the same thing is true for pilgrimage when you're going for pilgrimage you have to let go of these things go inwards engage in you have to engage
[00:52:45] with people who are further ahead on the path of spirituality who are way ahead of you so that you can go on that path get inspiration from them so the purpose of pilgrimage is to advance spiritually to go ahead in your spiritual sadhanas now if you go there and engage in spiritual in sensual activities
[00:53:14] you are not going to meet that goal and you are also going to spoil the energy of the place the teertha gets its energy from the people who are doing japta paddhyan there and the meeting of many such people right so that is the basic difference now coming to the amenities cleanliness I think we need to have a major
[00:53:44] cleanliness drive in our temples you know in fact I think the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan which is at this point in time a big failure needs to be restarted probably from our temples temples you know so no I don't think anybody can disagree on that we need better basic facilities you know washrooms places to keep your belongings your shoes you know all those things
[00:54:13] basics need to be in place basic food facilities they are there but like you said they can always be a better quality check there the access to temples just couple of days back somebody had posted a picture of a matta which is all concrete zero trees and people were suffering in heat now why can't we have what I was telling you about trees now
[00:54:43] why can't we ensure that people who are coming in extreme weather they are at least well protected from the weather crowd control or the crowd management in terms of how you take them across I have been to temples where once you are inside the queue you can't get out of it you just can't get out of it and there are those steel rods which have
[00:55:13] just enough space for one person I was once at a temple and I had enough time but the temple que just did not move and that because I had a flight to catch there was no way to get out it's a major design failure and it's a disaster in the making if somebody is uncomfortable somebody has medical emergency what are you going to do and the
[00:55:42] suffocation is so much that probability of that happening is quite high so all those things need to be taken care of I mean there is no I don't know if temple authority should do it if the people engaged in the business should do it but temple management definitely need to look into this and our temples need to be beautiful our temple used to be beautiful but today every temple has those steel rods and all
[00:56:12] you see is steel rods and steel rods and steel rods when I
[00:57:06] Effectively, we need to solve this problem. Do you think there needs to be some kind of a temple management framework process, something that has to be thought out? Because I do feel the heart is in the right place with some of these things. I think both of us have been to Kashi pre and post corridor. And both of us have had different experiences, right, pre and post.
[00:57:31] And also there is talk about some of the developments around Kamakya Temple as well right now. And there's a whole bunch of people who are opposing that as well. I do feel that there is a need for some kind of a central framework that can be adapted by communities, right? I mean, some kind of a guiding path in terms of, hey, I mean, how do we make these places accessible, as you said? How do we make it relevant for the modern times, right?
[00:58:00] Because sheer population, scale, size, complexity has increased. How do we keep the age old traditions, but also, I mean, adapted to the modern times? One of the things that temple management people need to understand is that it's very important to respect the devotee who's come from a distant place. They also deserve the same respect like VIPs do.
[00:58:27] So, you know, for a VIP, the temple is closed and exclusive access is given to, I mean, I can understand if a prime minister is given, a chief minister is given. But anybody who's worked in one film gets these privileged access. I mean, what makes them so special? Yeah.
[00:58:50] I mean, I can, you know, now that you bring it up, I mean, so there's a certain temple, very famous, that, you know, we had to keep a vrata. And obviously, you know, we did the hike up, which took us almost two to a half hours. And then, you know, two rounds around the griha. And then, you know, you barely have about five to ten seconds. And then you notice that there is a, literally there's a person inside, right? Who is experiencing the puja and everything right in front of the deity.
[00:59:20] And you realize that, okay, that person has paid about five lakhs or something, which is the going rate, apparently, for such a puja, right? Now, I don't know how I feel about this, right? Of course, I'm a, you know, let's call it, I'm a capitalist in that sense, right? Of course, I mean, there is value and there's an exchange, whatever. But I do also feel like as a sadhak, right, that it was a bit unfair. See, temple, there is a, there is a economics of temples.
[00:59:49] The whole pilgrimage place runs on the temple economy. But that's not the purpose of the temple. The purpose of the temple is to allow that flow of energy between deity and the devotee. That is the purpose of the temple. If you make the purpose a capitalist purpose, then that is what is happening in all these temples, which have a ticketed entry.
[01:00:15] So do you think this VVIP, VVVIP sort of a culture should be discouraged? See, I am okay if one, you know, there is a certain set of people who, who get the privileges. You know, let's say some, anybody who's ruling the country, a few, president of India, prime minister of India. A finite set of people. A finite set of people. And they don't go every day. Right. Right. Because it's more of their security issue. Right.
[01:00:43] But if you, but I see it more often being given to any film star. Any Tom, Dick and Harry whose work is seen in public domain being given this privilege. That's not fair. That's unfair to people who have traveled, who probably saved for a lot of time to be in that pilgrimage place. And probably who belong to the lineage of that temple. Right. Right. So there has to be some kind level of sanity there.
[01:01:14] There has to be a respect for a common devotee, which I see missing in temples. The big temples where these systems have been put in place. I mean, I see a couple of security guards standing just to push people. So you reach there and before your eyes can set and see, they just push you around. So I then come back and ask the devotees, why do you need to go? You know, there has to be a respect. I've seen them taking whatever offering they've taken.
[01:01:43] They'll take and put it in a plastic tub. And these are temples which have no dearth of money. You can at least keep an aesthetic tub or a place to keep or allow people and give people an alternate linga to offer it to. You know, so I think there has to be a lot of culture sensitive management.
[01:02:07] In the temples that have been recently modernized, I see a lot of big four doing these management setups. So they are designing it like a monument, like a tourist place. The cultural sensitivity is missing. For me, if I see a devotee carrying a flower for the deity and it doesn't reach the deity,
[01:02:32] whether in the mul swaroop or in a utsav swaroop or in a alternate swaroop, it's a disrespect of his feelings. Or if that offering is not handled with respect, it's just snatched and thrown into something. If they are not allowed to see at least 10 seconds, 30 seconds, it's an unfair thing.
[01:02:59] You have to figure out a way, but it has to be very, very culturally rooted, culturally sensitive. And a lot of people, you and I can articulate, we have a voice, we have platforms. But a common devotee is also feeling the same thing that you and I are feeling, probably much more. Correct. Right. So you have to understand their feelings. At some point in time, they will stop going.
[01:03:26] Today, if you go to Mahakal, you go to Kashi, you will see the locals. If you speak to locals, they will say, we used to go every day. There are many people who, it used to be a routine that they would get up, go take a dip in Ganga or Shipra and then go do the Darshan and then start their day. Now they can't go because the queues are five hour long, six hour long. You can't stand in the queue for five, six hours.
[01:03:53] Yes, sometimes they have alternatives for people with local Aadhaar and all that, but it is obviously not working. So for me, if Kashi Wasi doesn't get access to Kashi Vishwanath and rest of the world gets, there is something missing. Correct. Or if Ujjay and Wasi doesn't get access to Mahakal, but everybody else gets, and a VVIP, the temple is closed for them. Literally closed.
[01:04:22] If nobody else can come in, they have the temple to themselves. So there are two ways to handle it. One, people who are managing, they get sensitive to these things. Two, the devotees have to then choose their temples correctly. God is everywhere. Right. I want to know, like a quick response to some of these things that we do in everyday temples. Sure.
[01:04:51] Rapid fire, huh? Yeah. Okay. Maybe too soon for a rapid fire. But this concept of Garbha Griha, I don't think people truly understand. I think it comes up in conversation in terms of access, right? I mean, who can actually enter the Garbha Griha, stay close to the deity and so on. And people have, you know, sharp opinions on what to do, what not to do and stuff. Can you explain this concept? So, see, there is a, the deity is consecrated.
[01:05:19] Deity has an energy that most people may not be able to handle. The Archaka, the person who goes there and prays and who does everything for the Moorthy is used to or is trained to handle that energy. So, they can handle the energy. That's one. Second, you know, whenever everybody goes and touches the deity, there is an energy exchange that happens.
[01:05:48] And you are depleting deity's energy. So, it's better to stay a little distance away. The energy, there's no major dilution in energy between touching and being close to a person, you know. So, in Indian culture, anyway, we don't touch each other. We don't have the culture of touching each other. We say namaste. Right. Throughout India, you say namaste, vanakkam, whatever, you know, they all mean the same. So, we do this. We touch ourselves. We don't touch the other person.
[01:06:16] Then why do you want to touch anybody and everybody? Right. Right. Why would the deity want to be touched by anybody and everybody? Right. If somebody comes to meet us at home and everybody comes touching us, how would we feel? Right. So, it's very, very basic. The deity is there. Go, meet, talk, come back. Right. What is the significance of the mandapa?
[01:06:45] So, mandapa is the place where you should spend some time. So, they say you go pray in the garbhagra, stand in front of garbha, say whatever you want to say silently. Then you should sit in the mandapa for about five minutes or whatever time you can sit there to absorb the energy. And sit quietly. And that's also the place where you can sit and meditate if the place allows. Right. You will see that everyone has a different way of doing the production and so on. Right.
[01:07:15] Some people go around once. Some people do it thrice. Some people do the different way of like they sit up and down and so on. Right. I mean, is there a prescribed way to do something? No. It's your own sankalpa. Right. It's your own sankalpa. In general, you should do odd number of times. One, three, five, seven, eleven. Those kind of numbers. Right. So, odd numbers are usually considered more auspicious than the even numbers. So, that's one thing. Then, a production can be done in many ways.
[01:07:45] So, one is simple walking around. In fact, there are scriptures which say you should do it very slowly. And how they describe, imagine a woman who is nine months pregnant and is carrying a few pots on her head. Think of the speed at which she will move. Move at that speed and do the production. You're not supposed to like run and finish. It's not a marathon. Right. So, you walk around and that's why our walls were so beautifully sculpted.
[01:08:14] So, you're moving and you're seeing each and everything and you're remembering the kathas, the stories from the scriptures. Right. Right. So, that's what you do. And then, in places where you have a custom of pradakshina like Govardhan Parvat in Vrindavan. There are many, many types of pradakshina. One is simple walk. Second is Dandavath Parikrama. Where you lie down and then you get up and then you lie down.
[01:08:43] You can do it as a couple. So, a lot of people because husband and wife are considered one. So, you will do one. Your wife will do. Then you do. Then your wife does. So, you do this way. There is the people who do 108 Dandav Parikrama. So, at one place, they will do that Dandav for 108 times. Get up and move. It takes years to do that. Wow. So, in a day, they probably move 5 meters, 6 meters. That's all they can move. But people do it.
[01:09:13] If you go on Govardhan Parikrama, you will see all of them. There are a lot of sadhus who are doing. Wherever they move, you know, once they've moved a kilometer or so, they'll move their kutiyah there. So, they'll make a small kuti there and live there. So, they literally live on that Parikrama path. There are people who do it with milk. So, you put milk on the path. You take a pot with a small hole and you kind of wash the path with the milk. That's what people do.
[01:09:42] There is also a beautiful Parikrama which I discovered in Govardhan only. It's called Sohni Parikrama where people take a broom and they clean the path. That's also a way to do Parikrama. So, there are many, many ways to do Parikrama. Right. One thing that you tweeted sometime back was twice a year, Devi ensures that we all eat halwa, puri and channa. Right.
[01:10:07] I think, without doubt, one of the favorite aspects of visiting mandirs is the prasad. Right. And it varies greatly between one to another. Do you want to talk about the significance of the prasad and also how to savor it and so on? So, prasad again depends on the deity. And you typically get prasad in Vishnu and Devi temples. And each temple has its own tradition of what kind of prasad. Right.
[01:10:33] But Vishnu temples typically have this rich prasad like you get this Tirupati Lado and Jagannath Puri, you know, which is the best to experience food. Yeah. You know, Anakshetra of Bhagawan. So, it's a, you know, we offer to the deity whatever we consume. And food is one of the most basic things that we consume or which we need to consume to be alive. So, that's what we offer.
[01:11:00] And we always offer what is best available with that. The best of things that we have is what we offer to the deity. So, the best food should be offered to the deity. Having said that, each temple has its own traditions and they are usually very regional depending on the region that the prasad is given. I have a post on Indie Tales about the famous temple prasads.
[01:11:29] Which talks about Puri, which talks about Dwarka and Banke Bihari in Vrindavan, you get Makhan Mishri Prasad. So, Makhan and Mishri is mixed and it's one of the most tastiest things you can ever have. In North India on Tuesdays, we get Boondi Prasad for Hanumanji. So, if you travel anywhere in North India, Tuesday outside a Hanuman temple, you will see these piles of orange boondi which is offered.
[01:11:57] And as a child, we used to look forward to Tuesdays to eat that prasad. Tirupati Laddu is of course famous. Then in Puri, you get Khaja. Puri Khaja is very famous. What else? I am not able to recall right now. Nath Dwara has beautiful prasads. And they have a daily routine. If you go in the morning, you get a different prasad.
[01:12:25] You go in the afternoon, you get a different prasad. You go in different seasons, you get different prasad. Right. So, yeah. How are temples different from ashrams? And what is the role of the ashram in sadhana? So, ashrams typically belong to rishis. They were like the universities run by rishis. This is where people came to study with them.
[01:12:53] They used to be the, let's say, the chancellors of their university. And they had their own set of students who eventually became teachers. And they would teach. And each had their own specialization and their own reputation based on which they attracted students. So, ashrams were basically educational and research institutes. Yes. Right.
[01:13:21] But typically, you do have some sort of a temple within. Right. I mean, I can think of Isha Ashram, for example, which has a Dhyanalinga temple there. So, every ashram had a temple. In fact, if you look at the typical schools which were established before, let's say, more than 50, 60 years ago, they also had a temple in the school. So, that's like having a presence of the deity, presence of a god. Typically, Saraswati temples.
[01:13:51] Right. If you go to, like, if I remember correctly, Bitspilani has a beautiful Saraswati temple. If you go to many, many Sanskrit universities, BHU has a temple in its campus. So, they would have the presence of the deity. Sometimes the presiding deity of Takshetra. Sometimes Saraswati, who's the presiding deity of learning. So, they would have. But ashrams had a completely different purpose.
[01:14:20] Ashrams were, like I said, they were the universities run by rishis for the purpose of education as well as research. Right. Right. Ma'am, you've gone to so many of these stadas and so on. Right. And you've experienced so many different things. I suppose now you can see certain patterns between the north and the south, the east and the west, how things are built, between different practices and so on.
[01:14:48] Can you talk about, you know, how this varies across the length and breadth of the country? Okay. So, let me tell you what is common first. The common is the same deities. Shiva remains Shiva everywhere. You know, Ganesh is Ganesh everywhere. Vishnu is Vishnu everywhere. The stylistic differences could be there. But you will identify a Shiva very easily. You'll identify Ganesha. You'll identify a Lakshmi, a Saraswati, a Durga very easily.
[01:15:18] So, there is a grammar which is common across the country. Expression is different. Okay. So, in South India, because you did not face as many invasions, a lot of it is preserved. A lot of it has seen a continued existence, a continued worship. So, that power, that culture and that discipline of following Agamas is there.
[01:15:47] In the north, because they had to continuously face, there are hardly any ancient temples left. Hardly. Although I can say there were at least as many grand temples in North India, if not more. So, what has happened? At some point in time, they made a shift to Bhakti. Right. So, they gave more importance to Bhakti. They did not have the choice of building, rebuilding temples as per Shastras.
[01:16:16] So, the temples shrank. They also lost that whole grammar of building temples. They just said, it's okay. You know, God is, again, they went with the Bhakti mode that Bhagwan is there. And you see that difference. If you visit a South Indian temple, you have to follow the temple tradition. Right. You know, nobody will allow you to go into the Garbhagraha. Forget about touching the deity. You have to, if you have to follow a dress code, you have to follow a dress code.
[01:16:44] But you go to North Indian temples, if the Pandit feels you are very emotional and you want to meet the deity, they will allow you to touch that. Most of the times, they allow you to touch. They allow you to do things which may not be allowed in general. So, they are a little more Bhakti driven. In the South, they are more Agama driven. Both have their own advantages and both have their own pros and cons.
[01:17:11] But that's the difference primarily because of the socio-cultural, economic differences. But a lot has been lost in the North India. I hope someday somebody would come and revive that. Right. You've spoken about reviving certain sun temples and worship, right? I mean, you tweeted some time back and I think you were able to source a few of these suggestions from X and stuff.
[01:17:39] Could you talk about this specifically? I mean, it used to be a very prominent sort of a worship in the older times. But I mean, of course, newer gods and deities have made their way to our lives now. So, sun has been called a Pratyaksh Devata. The only deity that you can see every morning. Every other deity, we imagine that they are like this, they are like that.
[01:18:05] But sun is the visible deity and it is a visible source of everything that we have. It's a visible source of life. It's a source of everything that we need to sustain life. Right. It's the source of water. It's the source of vegetation. It is the source of the whole ecosystem that's keeping us alive. So, from that perspective, it's the most prominent deity.
[01:18:31] If you go into astrology, it is the most prominent deity that is worshipped. If you look at the temples, the biggest temples in all the four corners of India are found actually on the periphery of India are of sun. Martand Sun Temple in Kashmir, Modera Sun Temple in Gujarat, Konark Sun Temple in Odisha.
[01:18:57] And there used to be, the biggest one used to be in what is now Multan in Pakistan. But the original name is Mulasthan. That is where the Sambha, who was the son of Sri Krishna and Jambavati, their son called Sambha, he had a skin disease. So, he was told to pray to sun. And sun is the karaka for all the diseases associated with eyes and skin and a few other places.
[01:19:25] So, he prayed to sun god and he was relieved of that. So, he built three temples. So, one temple was in Mulasthan. That was the primary place. And then one temple was in a place called Kalpi on the banks of Yamuna River. And the third one is debatable, but it was probably Konark in Odisha. So, these were the temples and they are also astronomical. For example, Modera Sun Temple is located on the Tropic of Cancer.
[01:19:54] So, is Mahakal. And so is the temples. So, is a temple in Tripura. Now, it doesn't seem like they fall, but they all fall on Tropic of Cancer. So, they were also measuring something using these temples. So, and we had a solar dynasty. Sri Ram, we know, belonged to Suryavanch. But a lot of us would also belong to the same Vansha. Lot of us.
[01:20:23] So, I have a feeling and we were typically sun worshippers. It was one of the, even when Adi Shankaracharya set up the six matas or six paths to follow, there was one path is Surya. Surya. And that worship is kind of lost, except in Bihar. In Bihar, they still, on Chhat, they do Surya Puja. That's one and Makkar Sankranti.
[01:20:48] These are the two festivals which are related to sun and that's still pending. Sorry, still celebrated. So, sun worship is something that I have a strong intuition. I mean, I don't have any other data, but a strong intuition that once we revive these sun temples, we will see a lot of flow of energy, a lot of flow of positive energy in the country.
[01:21:15] And it's my deep desire that these temples can be revived. The easiest to revive is Modera Sun Temple. It's fairly in a decent shape. There is no, there is nothing that stops us from putting a pratima there and consecrating and making it a practicing temple. Martand needs a lot of work. It pretty much needs to be rebuilt. There is no practice.
[01:21:45] The same goes for Konark. Konark, the Garbhagraha is not there. What people think is Garbhagraha is actually the Mandapa. The Garbhagraha is completely lost. So, that would also need almost rebuilding it. So, I hope in my lifetime, I hope at least Modera can become a practicing temple. It's easy to revive. Some other temples that can be revived are Kandaria Mahadev in Khajurao and things like this.
[01:22:15] Let's see. You know, these temples and so on, right? I mean, they form such a core part of a civilization that, you know, when we talk about what was this concept of India or Bharat, right? I mean, we point to the Tirte Yatras and these certain temples to say that, hey, there was a certain sense of geographical unity within these particular lands, right? And something that's also fascinating to me is seasons, right?
[01:22:44] How we have certain rituals across the length and breadth of the country around certain times, right? So, Karthika Masa, we briefly discussed as well. Can you talk about, you know, how certain seasons like Karthik, how they're celebrated across the length and breadth of the country and the significance of those? So, seasons are defined by the movement of sun and sun, moon, relative motion of sun, moon and earth.
[01:23:15] Most of our festivals fall on certain astronomical movements. So, ugadi happens when sun enters, you know, when the Chaitra Pratipada happens, right? Around the time when sun enters the Mesh Rashi or the Aries sign, right? It happens actually around 14th April, but Pratipada is when we take, it's a lunar month. Every festival has an astronomical reason.
[01:23:44] For example, Kumbh Mela happens when Jupiter is in the Kumbh Rashi. Every year, Jupiter moves into a different Rashi and whichever Rashi it is in is associated with a different river. And at that river, either the Mela or a Pushkaran, in South India they say Pushkaran. In North it is said Kumbh, I mean Kumbh has become a prevalent name.
[01:24:12] The right name would be Kumbh is only in Haridwar. What happens in Nasik and Ujjain is called Simhast because that's when Jupiter is in Leo or Guru is in Simh Rashi. So, we are just celebrating or replicating or acknowledging something that's happening in the sky. And it is again based on the concept that Yatha Pinde, Tatha Brahmande.
[01:24:39] Whatever is happening in the macrocosm will happen in the macrocosm. So, you are trying to align yourself with the macrocosm. Right. Right. So, the calendar across India is the same. But conventionally, how we take months is slightly different. Somewhere we start the month after Amavasya and somewhere we start the month after Purnima. Right.
[01:25:08] And somewhere we start the month when the sun moves from one zodiac to another zodiac. That's the only difference. Everything else remains the same. That's why we have the festivals on the same dates. So, for example, Navaratri, a subject on which I have a book. So, same nine days are celebrated across India. How they are celebrated is slightly different. Expression is slightly different.
[01:25:37] Deity is same. Dates are same. The core text that is read is the same. The core rituals are the same. The worship of divine feminine and even the feminine which is present around you. Whether in the form of Suvasini Puja or in the form of Kanya Puja, you still worship the divine form. Every Durga Puja, there is a debate that Bengalis engage in.
[01:26:07] On Twitter. On Twitter. They will say, it is not Navaratri. They will say, it is not Navaratri. And you go and ask them then why are you celebrating it right now? Right. Why are you celebrating on exactly the same dates?
[01:26:47] Okay. And most importantly, India is bound through the footprints of its pilgrims. When people, everybody in India wants to go to Kashi. That's one place where everybody wants to go since ages. When you travel from here to Kashi and come back, you are kind of weaving the fabric of India with your travels.
[01:27:16] That's how India is bound. For me, India is bound through these two or three factors. We can have diverse expressions. We can talk differently. We can eat differently. We can dress up differently. But when it comes to our faith, when it comes to our beliefs, the core beliefs are the same. The expression may be different. Right. Right. And it's very apparent. Yeah. No, it's actually not very different.
[01:27:42] We still, you know, if you go to the worship, we still do either Pancho Bacar or Shodusha Bacar or Chatu Shasti Bacar. Which means we either offer five things or 16 things or 64 things to the deity. Same things are offered. Similar things are offered, if not exactly same. Everywhere you have Haldi Kumkum, you have Chandan, you have, you know, Jala Bhishek for Shiva. You know, same things, similar things.
[01:28:11] Now, your recipe of your laddu and my laddu can be different. That's all. Right. So, recently, I mean, there was this whole, well, not so recently, there was this whole controversy about the entry of women into the Sabrimala temple and so on. And oftentimes, I mean, this spans more than that particular issue because we tend to see this from the lens of modernity and more or less, let's say, from a Western lens.
[01:28:37] Would you want to comment on this whole dichotomy between rights and responsibilities and so on, right? I mean, as pertaining to temples. So, first of all, there are thousands of temples of Ayapa. Okay. Mostly in South India. I think when I was growing up, I had not even heard of Ayapa temples because there were none in our surroundings in North India.
[01:29:07] Now, everybody who is an equal rights activist wants to fight for it. But let me ask them a few questions. First of all, do you know who Ayapa Swami is? Second, there are thousands of Ayapa Swami temples. Why are you not going there and praying? Why do you want to go that one particular temple where the Swaroop of deity is that of a Brahmachari?
[01:29:34] Where he has gone deep into the forest on a hill and he's sitting in a meditating position, meditating. If we consider our deities to be life, then he is a living entity and he's sitting there and meditating and he does not want to be disturbed. Why do you want to go there is my question.
[01:29:58] Second, you have to see that people who actually believe in Ayapa or who have been traditionally the Ayapa devotees, are they the one who are asking for it or are the people who probably never visit a temple, who do not even belong to this tradition? Why are they questioning? What is their interest in questioning?
[01:30:26] It also comes from the fact that we have somewhere started equating temples with monuments. We think if I can go to a monument, if I should have the right to go to a monument, I should have the right to go to every temple. The fact remains that we have different types of temples. There are teerthas which are open to anybody and everybody. There are temples which belong to certain communities.
[01:30:54] And that community has the first right to go to those temples and they have the right to decide whether they allow others or not. For example, most Kula Devata temples, it is the right of that community to tell you whether they allow you or not. Just like I cannot enter your personal home temple without your permission, nobody else can enter those or should enter those temples. Because they belong to a community, a Kul.
[01:31:24] Kul means a lineage. Now that lineage may have grown and become a community in itself. The same applies to Ayya Paswami temple also. And there are temples. For example, there is a Devi temple where in the early morning aarti, only women are allowed inside the Garbhagraha and everybody else stays outside. Now is that an equal right? No, it's the Swaroop of the deity.
[01:31:50] Because being a Devi temple, women are seen as an embodiment of that Devi. So women are allowed inside. And in Sabrimala, you are not even, women cannot do that 45 day or 41 day vrata. 40 days. 45 days, right? 40, 40. I think it's 40. Okay, so it's 40 to 45, whatever, even if it's 40.
[01:32:20] Women in a certain age group cannot take that vrata because of a natural phenomena. Right. Because of the natural rhythm of their bodies. Now, if you really believe in that deity, would you want to break that vrata and go? And women who can do that vrata are allowed to go. Right. Right. It's as simple as that. Right. Right.
[01:32:47] So my question is that one, you know, we, people who believe in temples have to start talking about this very, very vocally, that temples are not monuments. Right. And temples belong to those who believe in them, especially the ones which are not traditional tirthas. They belong to a certain region. They belong to a certain community. Right. And they know how to handle those.
[01:33:16] So in some sense, there is a concept of first among equals, right? I mean, and I guess, you know, where people kind of get uncomfortable about this. It's a public private thing. You know, is your, is the temple in your home a public thing? Right. Is, let's say if, if it's an apartment complex and you, there is a temple there. But is it as simple as property rights? It's not property rights, but it is, it is about who does it belong to?
[01:33:47] It may lead to property rights, but my point is if there is an apartment complex and there is a temple in that. Now you can't go, if not everybody can go, it belongs to that apartment complex people. Now their guests may go. Some visitors may be allowed on certain festivals, but it belongs to a certain community. Now that community in a modern sense, that apartment complex, it may have multicultural people.
[01:34:17] Right. But it belongs to them. They may not be related by anything else except that they all collectively own that complex. Right. It could be any community. Right. What I am saying, it's not a public property. Not every temple. So there are temples. For example, all the Tirthas, they have always been a public place.
[01:34:38] They are public property and there are no restrictions in most of them unless there has been an incidence in the past which has led to some restrictions. Like in Jagannathpuri. In Jagannathpuri, non-Hindus are not allowed. So, and it has its roots in some incidents in the past. But most other temples have no such restrictions. Anybody can go.
[01:35:08] Anybody who wants to go, can go. But there are temples which belong to a certain Kshetra or a certain community. There they have the first right. Sometimes it's a closed, it's a Kuldevata, it just belongs to one family. It's up to them if they want to allow or not. Right.
[01:35:32] Let's say you lived in a huge extended giant family and you have a family deity and a temple. Who will you allow it? You'll only allow people who are friendly towards you and the family. The same, just extend that concept. Right. In fact, this whole idea that, this whole idea where people say Brahmins don't allow us into their temples comes from this.
[01:35:59] You ask them, do you allow Brahmins in through your temples? Whenever somebody says we were not allowed into Brahmins temples, ask them, did you allow Brahmins? Did Brahmins come to your temples? No, because every community had their own temples. But we do see this sort of a cross-pollination of Pandits and Purovits, right?
[01:36:25] I mean, so Kashi, for example, has a ton of people from Udupi and, you know. Kashi is the Teer Thakshetra. Right. Everybody goes. It belongs to everybody. So Kashi has no such restriction. Right. Ujjain has no such restriction. Rameshwaram has no such restriction. Everybody comes. So at prominent places, let's say. Teer Thakshetras. Teer Thakshetras. Teer Thakshetras, which are well defined, they have no restriction as per my knowledge.
[01:36:55] One or two places have it, but that's only restricted to non-Hindus not allowed. That's all. Right. Within Hindus, everybody is allowed. It's only in smaller temples where there are Kula Devata or Kshetra Devata. Kshetra Devata, Kshetra people have the first right. Kula Devata, Kul people have the first right. That's it. Right. Just that logic if you apply. Right. And also, importantly, temples are not monuments.
[01:37:23] They're living spaces. Right. So you have to follow the rules of a living entity. It's not something that you go see, click a picture and come back. I mean, you can do that, but it's much more than that. Right. We spoke about so many of these nuances. And in the age old times, I suppose, I mean, this was being transmitted generationally,
[01:37:50] where grandparents lived in the same house as the rest of the folks and so on. Right. I mean, now in this world where we're seeing pretty much nuclear families and those kind of structures. Right. People are getting this knowledge through, let's say, the Internet or new age gurus and so on. Although I don't like that phrase particularly. But through various other sources. What do you think of this?
[01:38:18] I mean, do you think that it's a net positive in some sense or do you think that people should again like filter their sources and go back to, you know, some form of like going back to their own sampradayas and sort of filtering everything through that lens? I think once people start realizing the information overload, they will put their filters. They will put their filters or the filters will come up.
[01:38:43] In fact, I was just reading that there are these there is a rise in local community meetings a lot. Now, people are engaging in small community meetings, whether it's for concerts or whether it's for readings or entertainment or bonding. People are trying to engage with people who are in their local network, you know, people with whom you can get up and go and meet.
[01:39:10] The second trend is that in last 20, 25 years, when Indian workforce became global and families were scattered across the globe. Now the time has reached when everybody is trying to be in one place. So if you go into the large apartment complexes, you will see you are living in one apartment. Your parents are living in next block. Your in-laws are living in another block. Your brother is living in one. Brother-in-law is living in one.
[01:39:40] So I see this as a distributed joint family. You are close to each other, but you have your independence. You are available to each other, but you still have your independence. You may not be sharing the same roof, but the same building. Same building. You're close by. You're available to each other. You know that if your parents need you, you are there. Or if you need each other. So with this, I also see that role of grandparents again becoming what it used to be.
[01:40:11] But at this point in time, honestly, I think that senior citizens are the biggest consumers of content today. Yeah. You know, of all kinds of content. Right. So, but hopefully once this information overload bubble is over, people will again plug into their own families and extended families. Right. I want to end on a more personal note. You have been visiting so many of these places.
[01:40:40] How has that changed you? How has that impacted you personally? I think I think I belong to India and the whole of India belongs to me. I don't see this North, South, East, West divide. I don't see the visual divides that apparently for which people keep fighting, you know, the language divide. I want to literally tell people that you sit down and listen to the language you are trying
[01:41:09] to oppose and you will see 50% of your language is in that language. The same goes for every other aspect. So, I think I'm somewhere, you know, somewhere the travel makes you, the Hindi word would be samatwa. It brings equanimity. So, somewhere you start seeing that non-duality or you start, the differences start falling apart.
[01:41:39] You know, there is a beautiful bhajan by Meera bhai. It says, Karna phakiri, pher kya dilgiri, sada magan mein rehna ji. So, she talks about three aspects of travel. What do you need for travel? You need a way to travel from one place to another. You need a place to stay and you need a bit of food to survive. These are the three basic things that a traveler needs. So, she says, and which is still very true, as I've seen in my traveling life, that someday
[01:42:08] you'll have the most luxurious place to stay and the other day you may be sleeping on the floor. Someday you have, she says laddu peda, but I would say you have the best of gourmet food and the other day you may not have anything. You may survive on just water. Someday you may have the best luxurious travel options, you know. She says hati ghode. But I would say, you know, you're taking the best of flight. You're trying, flying business class. And the next day you're just walking. You're doing parikrama.
[01:42:37] You're just walking or just walking from one place to another. But what it does is that the two things look equal to you. You are as easy in the luxury as you are in the absolute absence of it. So, that samatva comes. That ease comes. Of course, as you age, you look for basic comfort. In your younger days, you can rough and tough. You can rough it out.
[01:43:06] But the way you look at people, it becomes very sum. You see people, places, everything. You start seeing the connecting factor rather than what is dividing. You stop seeing the differences. You start seeing what is unifying each of us. Right. So, moving from seeing. You, of course, start where?
[01:43:35] You know, you say, we eat this, they eat this. And you say, yeah, both are rice. You know, it's just a different expression of rice. Right. Right. Well, that's a beautiful note to close the podcast. Each of the aspects that you spoke about, I think we can probably have a two-hour discussion on these as well. But my intention was to cover like a broad base of things. And maybe this can serve as a rabbit hole for people wanting to explore more.
[01:44:01] Of course, I mean, you've written fabulously over more than a decade, I suppose, with Indie Tales. Two decades. Yeah. Yeah. Really, again, each of your blogs are so nicely digestible. Right. And it sends you on a trail. I mean, the past, I mean, I used to go down Wikipedia and now, I mean, I asked Chad JPD about a few things that you've talked about and so on. Yeah. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, ma'am. It was a real pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much. Thank you to you and to your team.
[01:44:31] Thank you.