17 THE TEMPLE COMPLEX

Dr. Nivedita Rao

Introduction

The early centuries of the Christian era saw many changes in the religious life of north India. These changes came primarily as a response to the growing popularity of Mahayana Buddhism and its doctrine of the saviour figure of the Bodhisattva, veneration in the form of images placed in the Chaityas and Viharas and the relatively simple forms of devotional worship. Puranic Hinduism thus was a response to the growing popularity of Mahayana Buddhism as well a rethinking of Vedic religion centred on the sacrifice exclusively performed by and for the upper caste. Puranic Hinduism on the other hand revolved around bhakti or devotion. Puranic religion had a wider appeal since it involved little investment such as gifts, keeping of fasts and vows, collective journeys to pilgrimages and subscribing to local mythologies [Thapar, 2002] These new deities were venerated iconographically and like human beings required care and worship by their devotees. The Puranic deities were meant to aid the devotee to moksha or the final liberation. Thus temples to various incarnations and forms of Shiva, Vishnu and the Devi began to be erected as abodes of the deities and the Puranas came to be compiled in the Gupta periods with narratives of the myths and legends of the lives and achievements of these Puranic deities. The Puranas also contained manuals for the building of temples, the proper form of rituals to be performed and the manner of worship of these deities.

The Hindu temple as we know it today is a product of centuries of acculturation and amalgamation of several strands of Puranic Hinduism with local or folk cults scattered all over the Indian subcontinent. The temple is the abode of the deity that is it is literally the house of the deity and is organised thus. It is also a place of worship. Temples may be vast institutional complexes often covering very large spaces and sometimes engulfing an entire town with a huge staff, landed property and vast amounts of wealth such as those in Tamil Nadu and Kerala while the majority of them are middle sized single structures and some as village temples to local deities are indeed very small and may have only the inner sanctum to house the deity. Apart from the smaller temples to local deities most Hindu temples to the Puranic high gods were built and maintained by the ruling elites consisting of the Brahmins, Kshatriyas royal houses and the dominant social classes. In the premodern periods R.Champakalaxmi notes that the role of the temple was manifold- it was owner of land and other movable and immovable property, was the focus of economic activities such as markets, fairs and pilgrimages, ran educational centres, maintained manuscripts and provided for medical as well as hospital facilities and in the cultural sphere also promoted dance, music, theatre and local festivities. It also played a very important role in legitimising the sovereignty of rulers through the performance of rituals and often was an arena of competing political rivalries. [R. Champakalakshmi 2007]

The temple plan

First the temple site is selected and then ritually purified. Next stage is the erection of the temple on a ground plan. The ground functions as a sacred geometric design called the Vastupurushmandala. [Michell, 1988] Vastu means residence while the purusha is the cosmic man and the mandala represents a closed polygon. The Vastupurushamandala is conceived on the square plan, as a shape the square usually is associated with the gods. The centre of this square is inhabited by the three most important gods of the puranic pantheon namely Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma. Vishnu is represented by the many avatars while Shiva is represented as a human as well as the phallic symbol or the lingam while Brahma has all but vanished from the worship in temples. The Vedic divinities are subordinated to the periphery of the square and are generally symbolised as constellations or the nakshatra. These are followed by the lokpalas or wardens of the four directions- Mahendra on the east, Yama on the south, Varuna on the west and soma of the north. The dikpalas [ Indra, Agni, Yama, Nirriti, Varuna, Marut, Kubera, Isana.] or guardian deities occupy the cardinal and intermediate directions. [R. Champakalakshmi 2007]

When a site is chosen for the building of a temple the sthapati or the chief mason is required to follow the Vastu mandala. The ritual is marked by levelling the ground, purification as well as sowing seeds to signify the birth of a holy site as well as the drawing of the mandala on the site. Most temples face the east in accordance with the rising sun but some temples face west or south as in the case of Vishnu. [R. Champakalakshmi 2007]

A basic Hindu temple consists of a womb chamber or the garbha griha where the deity is installed, with a circumambulatory passageway around it called the pradakshina patha, a congregation hall or the sabha mandapa, an antechamber called the ardhamandapa and a porch. Towering the sanctum is the shikahra which is typically of three types.

The Nagara style- the shikhara is designed as curvilinear roof. The Khajuraho temples, Solanki temples of Gujarat and temples in Rajasthan belong to this group

The Dravida style – the shikhara is a storeyed or tiered construction interspersed with miniature shrines. Temples from Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh belong to this group

The Vesara style- this is a hybrid style wherein the shikhara has a prominent vertical band on each of its angles and small replicas of the shikhara positioned on an object resembling an altar. Temples of the Deccan such as that of Ambarnath in Mumbai belong to this group. [R. Champakalakshmi 2007]

Origin and development of the temple-

The beginnings of temple building is generally associated with the rule of the Guptas [4th-6th centuries] who ruled the Gangetic heartland and were considered as patronisers of the classical form in art and literature. Unlike the earlier Vedic worship which centred on a fire altar built for the purpose of the yajna and later destroyed, the puranic temple was a solid permanent structure built for puranic gods as their home and place of worship. The concept was not altogether new since there have been suggestions that deification of puranic deities in human form and shrines built of either wood or bamboo dedicated to deities did exist from Kushana periods.

Temples also arose when local deities or heroes were absorbed into the Puranic pantheon. Eschmann analyses this process of Hinduization of a tribal deity and its development as a supra local deity venerated in Hindu temples. Typically this process would occur in those areas with a sizeable tribal population and its contact with caste society and the daily worship of the deity. Such a deity would have been a natural stone or may only be a wooden post and would require animal sacrifice performed by a non–Brahmin priest who may also be a mediator [bhagat] of the deity. The process of Hinduization would commence with donations of land or ritual articles for regular puja, placing of an icon/ image in place of the aniconical symbol, building a structure over the deity and finally replacing the non–Brahmin priest with a Brahmin one and subsequently transforming the form of worship from sacrifices to offerings of flowers, food and coconuts. [Eschman, Kulke & Tripathi 1978] Such a process of Hinduization of tribal deities is visible in the case of Jagannath, Lingaraj and Sthambeshvari all tribal deities of Orissa, the Vithoba cult of Maharashtra, the Khandoba cult of pastoral tribes of Maharashtra and the cult of mother goddesses in many parts of India. In the Hinduization of the Goddess sometimes a consort is added like Shiva and this allows for her complete absorption into Puranic Hinduism.

Similarly temples in early medieval India were also constructed as royal cult centres such as that in the Jagannath-Puriin Orissa, Eklinga temple in Mewar, Tanjavur temple, the Virupaksha temple and the Minakshi temple in south India. The royal cults emerged as a symbiotic relationship between the monarch and the sacred centre wherein the deity became the ruler of the region and the king his representative. [Chattopadhyaya 2003]

In the case of Jagannath temple Kulke notes that Anantavarman Codaganga [1078-1147 A.D.]an important Ganga king constructs a temple to lord Jagannath on imperial scale with land donations, great annual festivals and daily rituals on a grand scale. A series of inscriptions between 1230-31 show that his grandson Anangbhima III [1211-1238 A.D.] acknowledges lord Jagannath as the overlord [samraj] of Orissa and renounces his own consecration to proclaim that he would only as lord Jagannath’s deputy. Kulke notes such an action not only allows for a greater vertical legitimisation in newly conquered regions but also a horizontal legitimisation over other rival Hindu rajas for imperial heritage. Similarly another Orissan king of the Gajapati dynasty [1434-1541 A.D.] constructs the Sun temple at Konark and the sculptures in the temple show the king kneeling upon his knees in front of the god. The Gajapati rulers of Khurda and Puri till today call themselves sevak of the lord often assuming quasi-priestly functions. It was this sevak function that provided the main legitimation to the Puri rajas to interfere in temple matters. The Gajapati Rajas also used this position to threaten their political opponents with the wrath of the state deity as well as control their feudatories by allowing or disallowing royal privileges at the temple [Eschman, Kulke & Tripathi 1978]

The Rajarajeshvar temple in Tanjavur was similarly set up as a deliberate act of royal policy by the Chola king Rajaraja I [AD 985-1014]. Architecturally the temple came to represent a central ceremonial complex dominating the city. The iconographic program of the temple was carefully planned to consolidate Shaivism as the royal religion and subordinate other existing faiths. The administrative and ritual arrangements of the temple were similar to the royal palace. Royal and temple servants as well as the chief manager had similar duties. But the most important addition was that of Chandeshvar, the mulabhrtya who looked after the accounts of the temple, assigned revenues, interests, receives paddy and other ritual commodities. R.champakalakshmi notes that here the king himself it would appear acts through Chandeshvar thus acquiring near total identity with divinity. [R.Champakalakshmi 1996]

Rituals performed in the temple-

The temple is the abode or the home of a living god and therefore commands all those daily activities that surround a living person except that these are performed by the temple priests as ritual throughout the day. The ritual begins with the waking of the deity with chants, mantras and music. The deity is bathed and robed in garments and precious ornaments. The deity is anointed with scents, performs, flowers, sandalwood and incense burnt in their presence. Then the naivedya/ bhoga or food offering is made. These activities are repeated in the noon and other times of the day with the evening rituals or sandhya puja and the midnight rituals with which the deity is made to rest. All these rituals are performed by the priests in the womb chamber or the garbhagriha and form part of the 16 great offerings or upacharas. The ritual requirements and method of performing such rituals are laid down in the various sectarian agamas. Once the rituals are completed vibhuti [sacred ash], kumkum [vermillion] and prasad is distributed amongst the devotees. The devotees do not directly participate in these daily rituals but may witness them from the halls and join in the arti ritual and the singing of bhakti songs.

The individual devotee comes to the temple for darshan and archana and witnesses the various rituals. The devotee also makes a circumambulation or pradakshina around the main chamber or subsidiary shrines in the clockwise direction. Sometimes individuals may request private pujas to thank the deity for fulfilling the vows of the devotee. Coconuts, oil, flowers and other objects are presented to the deity. Many a times these objects are precious made of gold or silver.

In the Brahmanical temple the puja is generally carried out by the Brahmin pujari with Sanskrit mantras and verses and the bhoga and prasada is generally vegetarian food while in the non Brahmanical temples the local priests of non Brahmin castes perform the puja and necessarily require meat and animal sacrifice. This is especially true of the various grama devatas or village deities including the various mother goddesses that offer relief from the pox and are child granting goddesses.

The pujas in the temple can be divided into two kinds- the first is the puja for private purposes which are done for the benefit of the devotee and may include intervention sought for sickness, infertility, financial difficulties, exams etc. While public pujas are performed for the well being of the world.

There are some ceremonies that occur regularly and are often called festivals or jatras. These consist of processions and enactments of myths associated with the deity and are often spectacular. [Michell, 1988] Some of these festivals include the Cittirai festival of the goddess Minakshi wherein the myth [lila] of the goddess is re-enacted. Carts of 50 feet are pulled with ropes by devotees and she is married to lord Shiva. The Jagannath Rath yatra is similarly a festival wherein massive carts with the moving image or the calanti pratima of Jagannatha, Balabhadra and Subhadra are paraded in the streets. In the Vaishnava temples grand festivals involving the community partaking of food or the Annakut festival is celebrated. Similarly festivals marking the birth of the deity are also celebrated such as Ram Navami, Hanuman Jayanti, Janmashtami and Shivaratri.

The temple economy-

The ritual of yajna in Vedic Brahmanism was replaced by dana or gift giving to Brahmin families in Puranic Hinduism as an institutional means of exchange and distribution of wealth. Thus gifts of land, gold, cattle and other precious items were routinely given by the political and economic elites of the society to Brahmin families. However by the post Gupta period donations to Brahmin families were replaced by donations to temples erected and patronised by a wider section of society. Donations were made for a number of reasons such as fulfilment of a vow, as an act of piety or gratitude for services rendered by the temple. Rich donations would also propagate the status of the donor or the power of a ruler. These gifts were recorded in copper plate inscriptions and thus have been well preserved and studied by various historians for the wealth of detail that they provide.

The temple was a regular consumer of articles of everyday use such as grains, coconuts, flowers, oils as well a consumer of precious items such as silk, gold, jewels and even elephants and horses. Local merchants and traders had to provide for items of trade such as camphor, aromatics, silks, jewels etc, while weavers provided cloth, oil mongers oil, and shepherds and cowherds for dairy products and ghee. All these groups R.Champakalxmi notes were brought under the ambit of temple trade and not only did they integrate various faraway lands into a trade network centred on the temple but also improved their status within the society by claiming to be donors to a prestigious temple. The temples not only participated in the local trade as consumer but also as a banker by investing gold and money deposits into business ventures. [R. Champakalakshmi 2007]

As grants accumulated, the temple in turn would become an employer and patron of various activities. Since land was the mainstay of a temple economy- projects of land reclamation and improved forms of cultivation was undertaken by the temple. Improvements in irrigation facilities such as building of water tanks, canals and new roads are also mentioned in temple inscriptions. [Michell, 1988] The temple provided a means of livelihood to a number of categories of people. These included priests, various Brahmin and non Brahmin elite groups acting as executives and administrators, and craftsmen and artisans. The temple also was an employer of various menial staff such as musicians, dancers and other service groups and were paid or remunerated with shareholding in the temple lands and given habitation in the vicinity of the temple.

Let us look at one example of various forms of income in a temple- The Jagannatha temple gives us a glimpse of how the temple would have made an income apart from regular donations. They generated an income from lands owned by the temple, the temple sold coconuts and paddy in the open market, it leased out fishing rights in tanks owned by the temple and also leased out stone quarries. It also earned through the entrance tickets as well as the sale of the mahaprasad, books, religious and ritual articles in shops owned by the temple and lastly also made earning by running a dairy farm. The pandas or the priests employed in the temple were paid by the pilgrims who needed accommodation and for the bhog made at the temple. Besides earnings made in cash, many artisans and peasants provided free services during the Ratha Yatra. [ E.Hein in Eschmann et al 1978]

Lise McKean has studied the special relationship that Swaminarayan temples have with the mercantile communities of Gujarat. She notes that some of business ethics are woven into the tenets of the religion itself such as careful business practices such as saving for the future, balancing income and expenditure, formalising business with kin in presence of witness adn through legal contracts and to bring account books to the temple to be blessed. She notes that being associated with the temple not only helps these communities in expanding their businesses but also improves their social status. [ McKean 1996]

The mathas

Monastic orders in ancient India had already been established by the Buddhists and the Jains. Within the Brahmanical tradition we find the emergence of such monastic orders based on the ascetic principle and a lineage of spiritual gurus emerging all over early medieval India. David Lorenzen’s work on the Kapalikas and Kalamukhas, two Pashupata form of Shaivism reveals their influence in the north, Gujarat and Karnataka. The Kalamukha priests also served as priests of temples and were associated with royal houses as their preceptor guru. In south India from the 12th century onwards many of the Shaiva mathas were headed by non-Brahman preceptors who promoted the Saiva Siddhanta school as well as Shiva bhakti. They thus received patronage from all sections of the society. The heads of such mathas were responsible for making the Agamas as the doctrinal basis of temple ritual [R.Champakalakshmi 2011]

The mathas had numerous functions such as the study and teaching of the religious doctrines and the practising of austerities. They also had to look after pilgrims and the feeding of Shaiva ascetics as well the organisation of rituals and festivals. Hospitals and animal welfare shelters were also attached to such mathas. The mathas also functioned as an educational institution and imparted learning in the traditional 18 vidyas. Saiva mathas would impart learning of Shaiva philosophy and related subjects. Sometimes libraries or sarasvati bhandars were attached to the mathas. [R.Champakalakshmi 2011]

Mathas emerged as rich land owning institutions and controlled the agricultural processes and redistribution of land and revenue from land. They assisted in introducing agriculture in non agricultural areas and reclaimed land. The matha also encouraged investments in trade and was patronised by powerful trading guilds of south India.

Later mathas of the Vijaynagara period tended to be dominated by Brahmin preceptor gurus from both the Shaiva or Smarta [Shankaracharya] and Vaishnava [Ramanuja and Madhvacharya] tradition. The pontiffs of these mathas were exclusively drawn from a Brahmin constituency. Although the pontiffs of these mathas are world renouncers they command considerable power by controlling and administering temples. Mines and Gourishankar’s study of Jayendra Sarasvati, the Shankaracharya of Kanchi-Kamakoti Pitha shows how the Shankaracharya uses temple rights and the theatre of publicly conferred ritual honors to dramatize his leadership and establish and maintain alliances. They note that he uses a variety of royal symbols such as the umbrella and the gold crown to heighten his position. As a manager of the temple, he distributes rights to his subordinate leaders to sponsor temple ritual and festivals for which they are rewarded ritual honours. He has also created trusts that fund rituals, temple projects, charities and lavish displays. He also has rights in other temples and has over time tried to gain an administrative foothold in other temples. His sphere of influence has widened with the establishment of other Kamakshi temples in other parts of India. His strategies at the control of institutions and ability to empower local leaders make him according to the researchers an ‘institutional big man’. [Mines and Gourishankar 1990]

Schisms and Gastrosemantics in the Brahmin mathas-

Schisms in the Shri Vaishnava tradition-

Shri Vaishnavism sacred centers were established by Ramanuja in sacred centers like Tirupati, kanchi and Srirangam. The schism between the northern[ Vatakalai] and the southern [Tenkalai] schools occurred in the 14th-15th centuries and is considered as a fall out of the reformist activities of Ramanuja who tried to include many non –Brahmin elements into the temple worship, ritual and administration. [R.Champakalakshmi 2011] The Vatakalai school had a sanskritic orientation emphasising the Vedas as the main scriptures and the Tenkalai emphasised the Tamil scriptures of the Prabandham for their ritual and worship requirements. Although both schools trace their lineage to Ramanuja, from the 14th century the lineage split into two- the northern or the Vatakalai school began tracing its lineage from Vedant Desika, and the southern or the Tenkalai school traced its lineage from Manavala Mahamuni, both lived in the 14th century. Ahobilam is considered as the most important matha of the Vatakalai tradition. While Srirangam and Tirupati-Tirumala are Tenkalai controlled temples in South India. Both schools have their mathas in important pilgrimage sites like Shrirangam, Tirupati, and Kanchipuram.

Gastrosemantics-

The food that is offered to the deity is termed as naivedya and when it is retrieved it is transformed into prasada or the grace of the deity. This is then redistributed among the devotees. However the act of consuming the prasada is highly structured often along caste lines. In the Udupi matha as studied by Rao, there are three areas for consuming the prasada. The mrsthanna and the chowki is restricted to Brahmin recipients, the former for special Brahmin invitees and the matha sanyasis, while the latter is restricted to Smarta and Madhva purohits, vidvans and Madhava Brahmins who teach at the Sanskrit colleges. While the bhojanashala is open to all devotees irrespective of caste. He observes that at the mrsthanna and chowki the food is like a Brahmin home while at the bhojanashala the food is like that of a restaurant. He concludes that the food events in the Madhava sect is meant to assert hierarchy of the caste system through commensal practices [Vasudeva Rao 2002]

Priesthood in the temples-

In the hierarchies of Brahmin castes, domestic priest or the purohits rank highest, the temple priest rank second and funeral priest are ranked the lowest. There is also the non Brahmin priest or the pujari of village deities.

Usually temple priests are sexually active married householders. Fuller gives a very detailed description of the priesthood in the Minakshi temple the largest temple in India dedicated to the goddess and spouse of Shiva, situated in Madurai in Tamil Nadu. In the Minakshi temple the priesthood is divided into two heads- the Vikkira Pantiyas and the Kulashekharas, both belong to the Adishaiva Brahmin sub caste which is endogamous [cross cousin marriages are allowed]. Both these groups Fuller states originally descended from non Brahmin groups and were given priestly duties by the Vijayanagara king in 1378 A.D. Both these groups have different rights and duties in the temple. While the Vikkira Pantiyas perform daily pujas, do the naivedya arti and can touch both the murtis of Sundareshvar and Minakshi, the Kulachekhara priest bathe and decorate the moving images during the festivals and can touch all the other images but not those of the main two- Sundareshvar and Minakshi. Non Adishaiva Brahmins are employed as cooks and priests for private worship; the chanters belong to the Smarta Brahmin caste and sing the Vedic hymns from the ardhamandapa. Other temple servants include the non Brahmin devotional singers from the Vellalar caste or the Shiva Pillai caste who sing from the Tirumurai or the Tevaram. Thus within the temple ritual function we find a hierarchy of functionaries – the Adishaiva ranked the highest, the Smartas next and finally the non Brahmin devotional singers, the musicians and other temple servants following these. [Fuller 1991]

In the Vaishnava temples there are two distinct systems of worship, the Pancharatra and the Vaikhanasa schools of worship. In the Pancharatra temples any Brahmin priest can officiate while the Vaikhanasa temples only qualified priests in the Vaikhanasa system can officiate.

Not all great temples of India employ only Brahmin priests; the Jagannath temple in Puri along with Brahmin priests has had traditionally the descendants of tribal worshippers called the Daitas. These priests are responsible for the most intimate of rituals such as dressing, and removing clothes of lord Jagannath. The Lingaraj temple in Bhubaneshvar also has a set of two priests, one a Brahmin and the other are the Badus from a non Brahmin caste probably of tribal origin. It is the Badus who have rights to bathe and adorn the Lingaraj icon. [Eschmann Kulke and Tripathi, 1978]

In the Krishna Matha at Udupi established by Madhvacharya, the priests are drawn from the Madhva Brahmin caste. Initiation ceremonies of a Madhva boy is generally performed at the age of 8-14 years and who is favourable to lead a celibate life or one who has a problematic horoscope. [Vasudeva Rao 2002]

Temple as a centre of redistribution-

The donor or the yajamana makes gifts of various kinds at various ritual occasions such as the puja or during a festival. In return he is honoured in various ways for instance in the south Indian temple with the bestowing of the largest garland worn by the deity or the silk vestments of the deity or sometimes is given a share of the leftover food of the deity and priority in drinking water [ tirtha] sanctified by contact with the deity’s ablutions or meals. Similarly the temple functionaries, priests, administrators and other also receive a part of the prasada. This may vary with temples and the scale of the donation. These redistributed leavings of the deity are known as honours [mariyatai]. Sectarian leaders, political figures as well as temple priests are honoured on regular basis with such honours and because of the public nature of these honours play an important role in the temple’s moral economy. As Appadurai notes ‘But these honours are not simply denotative emblems of rank or status. They are seen to be the constitutive features of culturally privileged roles in relationship to the deity. That is, the receipt of specific honors, in any given context, renders authoritative the individual’s share (panku) in the temple conceived as a redistributive process’. These rights he notes may vary such as to offer services, to donate or to move resources required for a ritual or to command relevant persons to perform a particular part of the ritual or simple witness the ritual. The rights would over time would become customary and be understood as ‘share’ in the ritual and redistributive process of the temple. [Appadurai 1983]

Temple reform-

After the colonial conquest, the British rulers became involved in temple affairs and emerged as ‘protectors’ of the Hindu temples. However the early interventions were of indirect supervision through the revenue department, exercising administrative jurisdiction over temple lands given as inams by early medieval rulers. By the end of the century this was expanded via the courts on issues such as temple management and relations of temple personnel came to be restructured. In south India the earliest of such interventions was by the regulation of 1817 which allowed the British administration to look into temple endowments. However these policies were reversed by 1833 due to pressure from Christian missionaries and management of Hindu temples were handed over to local management committees. But with ensuing corruption and mismanagement of the endowments the government again took charge. However this second time they were supported by the Dharma Rakshana society in 1908. This society was founded by Subramaniam Aiyer, Madras high court judge who believed in Hindu reformism. Concomitantly the government passed the Hindu religious endowment act in 1925 which set up the Endowment board and gave unprecedented powers over temple committees. By the act of 1935, the government allowed the board to ‘notify’ a temple and appoint an executive officer in charge of managements of the temple. [Appadurai 1983]

Legislations of Independent India resulted in the establishment of the Hindu religious and charitable Endowment Act in 1951 which established an HRE board. Today this is a full-fledged Government department with 35,000 temples under its administration and a cabinet minister. Some of the legislations of the Indian government resulted in the abolition of inam lands and the conversion of hereditary temple personnel into salaried workers.

Temple entry movements-

Caste movements in India emerged among in Dalit groups such as the Ezhavas of Kerala, Nadars of Tamil Nadu, Mahars of Maharashtra, Chamars of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Chattisgarh, Balmiks in Delhi and the Namasudras of Bengal in the early 20th century. The early attempts by such caste groups were to appropriate symbols of high cast ritual status by wearing the sacred thread and participating in community pujas and entering temples in south India this movement was led by the Nadars in 1874 with an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Minakshi temple. In 1897 they did enter a temple in Kamudi. Some other temple entry movements in the early 20th century were the Vaikkam satyagraha in 1924-25, Guruvayur satyagraha in 1931-33 in Malabar, Munshiganj Kali temple in Bengal. In Maharashtra there were 3 abortive temple entry satyagrahas in 1927 in Amravati, 1929-30 in Pune at the Parvati temple and from 1930-35 at the Kala Ram temple in Nasik initially led by Babasaheb Ambedkar. But by 1935 Ambedkar had decided to leave Hinduism and hence for him the temple entry movements were meaningless now. He believed that the Dalit movement must concentrate more on education and political power rather merely ritual status.[ Zelliot 1996] the first great temple to open its door to the Dalits was the Minakshi temple, the movement was led by a Gandhian group called the Tamil Nad Harijan Sevak Sangh. The Madras legislative assembly later passed the Temple Entry Authorization Indemnity Act in 1939 opening doors of Hindu temples to all Dalit groups. In 1970’s the DMK government of Tamil Nadu did try to abolish hereditary Brahmin priesthood by the Archaka legislation. The law was seen as social reform measure that was closer to an egalitarian ethos opening up priestly function to all candidates irrespective of caste, creed or race. By a 1971 amendment to the same act, the government gave orders to read Archanas in Tamil and not in Sanskrit. The Supreme Court stayed the order in 1974.

More recently the Gokarnanath Temple in Mangalore has trained two widows as priests for their temple. Traditionally widows were regarded inauspicious and unfit for ritual activities, however this temple has not only trained women but widows to perform rituals at the temple thus breaking traditional gender stereotypes in India.

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