TEMPLES SINCE WHENsage Vyasa in the Mahabharata - 1.1.204 इतिहास पुराणाभ्यां
वेदं समुपबृंहयेत |
बिभेत्य अल्पश्रुताद वेदॊ माम अयं परतरिष्यति| - The Veda is afraid of
interpretations by so-called scholars who provide tangential meanings. The
very purpose behind compiling the Itihasas and Puranas is to throw light on
the Vedas, the mantras and sacrifices contained therein, and the deities to
be worshiped etc.
Within the Itihasas, the earliest evidence we find of deity worship and/or
existence of a temple is in the Ramayana, Ayodhya kanda where Lord Rama
worshipped Lord Narayana before His coronation ceremony in the following
slokas:
शेषं च हविषस्तस्य प्राश्याशास्यात्मनः प्रियम् |
*ध्यायन्नारायणं* *देवं* स्वास्तीर्णे कुशसंस्तरे || २-६-३
वाग्यतः सह वैदेह्या भूत्वा नियतमानसः |
*श्रीमत्यायतने* *विष्णोः* शिश्ये नरवरात्मजः || २-६-४
In tradition, this deity of Lord Narayana is believed to be originally
handed over to Lord Brahma by Lord Vishnu Himself which came to the kings
in the Ikshvaku dynasty which got later handed over to Vibhishana and is
now consecrated and being worshipped as Lord Ranganatha in Sri Rangam.
In the Puranas, we find that Sri Krishna Himself explains about deity
installation and worship in the Uddhava Gita in the verses beginning with:
11.27.7 (Bhag P):
vaidikas tAntrikO miSra iti me tri-vidho makhah
trayANAm ipsitenaiva vidhinA mAm samarchayet
11.27.9 (Bhag P):
archAyAm sthanDile'gnau vA sUrye vApshu hridi dvijah
dravyeNa bhakti-yuktO'rchet sva-gurum mAm amAyayA
etc. Interested readers may go through that entire adhyaya.
Second, Sabara Swamin himself and the scholars of all the three traditions
- advaita (Shankaracharya see Br Sutras 3.3.43 - तदुक्तं सङ्कर्षे — ‘नाना वा
देवता पृथग्ज्ञानात्’ इति ।), dvaita (Madhwacharya, Jaya tirtha), and
vishishtadvaita (Vedanta Desika) have acknowledged the existence of
madhyama mimamsa a.k.a. sankarsha kanda or devata kanda which talks about
devatas and their various modes of worship.
Finally, some of Swami Dayanand Saraswati's works and views such as
satyartha prakash have been challenged by scholars such as Pandita
Madhavacharya in their works such as PurANa digdarshan. So, I request that
all scholarly views be examined carefully before drawing conclusions about
when and why temples/deities were installed.
I would posit the opposite question. Why would there been a need for
temples if you could invoke them directly through the fire? Other than
perhaps talismans or tags prescribed by the deity.
This is an important question that needs documentary evidence. At least
one major Vedic scholar, Swami Dayananda Saraswati who wrote a Rig Veda
Bhashya, is on record that Jains were the first to build temples in the
Indian subcontinent. Others merely copied them.
The temple-deity construct, from its purpose, is as a store of energy
transmitting to people for whom the kula deiva is the the temple deity.
There is an injunction that is harder to follow today - sit inside the
temple walls for at least five minutes before leaving as that is the key
part of the visit. This feature perhaps was a reason for caste based entry
restrictions later based on whatever the locals decided was polluting to
the energy inside the temple walls?
It would seem that the temple-deity construct is a scaled one for
efficiency and cost when populations grew and it wasn't possible or
interesting for most to invoke through fire daily or regularly. KR IRS
10123
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