“The root of happiness is mandir, The basis of mandir is prosperity.
The basis of prosperity is good management ; The basis of good management is self-control.”
The author of “Temple Economics,” Sandeep Singh, is like a maths teacher we’ve never encountered in our school time. He has made significant efforts to explain the entire subject of temple economics (mandir arthvyavastha) from basics to advanced concepts, comprehensively. Most readers tend to skip the preface and directly jump to the first chapter/unit, but the preface of this book is a must read. One of the interesting prefaces of a book I’ve come across!
In the preface, the readers can observe and discern the author’s attachment to the subject of this book, one can feel the emotion and sincerity behind his words written in the preface : “Except Hindus everyone got independence on 15 August 1947. Hindus are till date struggling to free their temples from the clutches of secular government which took over the power in 1947, after transfer of power.”
As a scholar of economics — Singh — has chosen a graph as the cover of this book, representing a crucial economic impact of the newly constructed ‘Ram Mandir’. After reading the book, one will get to know the graph’s significance.
The book Temple Economics is divided in four parts – Part I Arthashastra of Mandirs.
Part II Destruction of Mandir and its Arthvyavastha, Part III – Loss of Mandir Ecosystem, Post – Independence, Part IV – Need to reestablish Mandir Ecosystem.
This book encompasses the essence of two – three books as it doesn’t solely talks about the arthik (economical) activities of the mandir, but it also have quotations of different books and delves into certain fundamental thoughts of Sanatan dharm in the very beginning ; it highlights many products which are results of mandir based Arthvyavastha, for instance saree. The book presents rangoli not just as a means of decoration but also associated this, with psychology. Author talks about the superiority of Bharat in Sea Trade,also the book has a lot of authentic tables, describing the economic glory of Bharat because of various mandirs.
The standout feature of this book is that the author provides the latest references, readings and youtube videos to watch ; after every unit of every part, ensuring their relevance in present times.
In the first part, the author strongly emphasizes on using the original Sanskrit-Hindi words rather than relying on their loose English translations which are non-translatable more specifically. Although part I is all about the title as given above, the Author, as I said, made efforts to explain from the base — which is also the most prominent thing when writing a book — that why we should use the word ‘Mandir’ instead of ‘Temple’.
Singh explains that the temple is a place of worship for all faiths, whereas the mandir is the abode of ‘Bhagwan’. Additionally, he also emphasized on the verity that why one must use Arthashastra and not economics, the west includes prostitution as a part of their GDP, and then label their economy as a growing economy, for them money is money, regardless of its origin. Whereas, Acharya Chanakya pointed out that ‘arth’ should be generated in dharmic ways, it includes trade, agriculture and productive activities. The crucial part of Arthashastra is ‘Dandaniti’ which deals with fines & punishments.
Author discusses several synonyms of the word mandir with the reference of many scriptures such as Vimana, Soudha, Nilaya, Grha, Alaya etc. which ultimately shows the verity that he had gone through many scriptures for several purposes, when writing this book. He describes how people perceive the mandir for themselves, where he refers the fact, for some people mandir means a sacred mountain to attainment of self realisation i.e. Atmagyan while for some it means the Universe. He also delves into the fact that mandir can be classified on many bases like Origin of the deity, Ownership, Scripture based Classifications, posture of the deity and so on.
Singh further describes the mandir based Arthvyavastha in clear & explicit words-
“ Temple Economy is a new concept. Mandir based arthavyavastha is as old as mandir. The money was generated and circulated in the society because of mandir, making it prosperous and over time wealthy. The right word is not wealthy but vaibhavshali. Vaibhav is beyond wealth. It encompasses richness with power, intelligence, ethics, and morality.”
He also adds the fact that mandirs construction and maintenance offered employment to numbers of architects and craftsmen, sculptors.
The author lists and describes the several utilities of big mandirs “They had civic as well as religious uses; they fulfilled the purposes of a town-hall, college and technical school. The people met in the temple porches to elect representatives for local bodies, to listen to sacred music, recitations or plays. The schools attached to the temple were the repositories of the philosophical lore which were the main source of religious life.”
Another, best part of this book, Singh, uses both contemporary instances as well as the old instances for readers to get relevance of what they are reading. He has also incorporated detailed case studies in every part and chapter. While talking about towns or cities developed because of mandir, Singh categorizes cities in three types :
● Mandirs were at the center of the city and the city developed around them – The best instance is the city of Thanjavur.
● City developed because of a lot of mandirs – For example : Bhubaneswar.
● The city is centered around a single cult centre or a Tirtha, for instance – Prgayaraj developed because of sangam and kumbh mela.
The author excelled when it comes to categorisation, he talked about several arthik (economical) activities — which are being operated through and in a mandir — at several places in his book. He further categorise and associated the mandir’s arthik activities in three easy points –
● Arthvyavstha developed because of making of murti and the mandir :
In this he delves into the several aspects of murti making, starting from cosmos (which plays a vital role in sanatan dharm), mathematics, metallurgy. When it comes to mandir he tells the vitality of architecture / civil engineering, acoustic, astronomy, physics, meteorology. In each of the aspects he gives finest examples of mandir, murti (idol) while easily explaining the difficult technicalities pertaining to these aspects.
● Arthvyavstha developed because of puja in the mandir :
In this he throws light on the upchara and samskaras which impacts arthvyavastha and knowledge. These are yagya vedi, decoration, prayer, karmkand, Prasad, music -dance and drama, toys, painting ; and most prominent – literature.
● Arthvyavstha developed because of activities of the mandir :
Here, he talks about how mandirs of ancient times used to finance schools, gurukuls and universities. Also, Mandir stored knowledge in different forms; one of the forms was the library. He also adds the well known fact that there were judiciary systems regulated in the premises of Mandirs.
Advocating this beautiful and perfect categorisation of economic activities of mandir, he presents 7 case studies. Each case study will blow your mind.
And then comes the most fascinating and prominent unit of this book. It is named as – Different Facets of Mandir and their impact on Arthvyavastha. In this unit, readers will find out the numerous facets of mandir based Arthvyavastha. The author had understood this verity, that giving age old examples will not be sufficient solely. So, in order to create interest for the readers, we can find his intelligence, where he gives instances of ancient times and also of present times.
The 10 facets which he describes are –
- Karmakanda Samsakara based Arthvyavastha
- Prasad based Arthvyavastha
- Shilpkala based Arthvyavastha
- Nritya, Natya, Geet – Sangeet based Arthvyavastha
- Parikrama based Arthvyavastha
- Tirth Yatra based Arthvyavastha
- Mela based Arthvyavastha
- Matham based Arthvyavastha
- Sampradaya based Arthvyavastha
- Aadhyatamik institution based Arthvyavastha
In Karmkand based Arthvyavastha he describes the significance of rituals while giving examples of flowers that are most used in this ritual. Singh mentions, according to a business website report, Delhi’s ghazipur flowers were sent to Vaishno Devi mandir — for its premises decoration and also for offering to the main deity — which were worth three crores rupees.
In Prasad Based Arthvyavastha, author states that – “Prasad is a factor of local produce, seasonality, nutritive requirement of the body according to astha prahar,and above all bhakti bhav i.e., on arthvyavastha, ayurveda and adhyatam.”
Not only Hindus but also people from other countries too, have to rely sometimes on the prasad system of mandir. Steve Jobs of Apple used to walk seven miles every Sunday to the mandir to have a proper meal. He further says – “Tirupati Laddu is famous across the world …..in their 2016-17 budget, the mandir board estimated the revenue from laddus sales was Rs 175 crore. Officials of the mandir board said that about two crore laddus were sold in 2015, and they expect the sales in 2016 to go up to three crore.”
In Shilpkala based Arthvyavastha, the author describes several shilpakalas of various states, their impact on Arthvyavastha and antiquity of that particular shilpkala. For instance, Andhra Pradesh’s Durgi Stone craft, Assam’s Mask Making and Bamboo craft, Bihar’s Mithila Painting, Gujarat’s Sankheda Furniture, Karnataka’s Mysore paintings, madhya pradesh’s bhedaghat marble statues, Maharashtra’s Narayan peth saree and so on. In one of the case studies, he underlines the fact that Bharat’s famous handicraft export was 2.1 billion USD for the financial year 2021-22.
These was just 3 facets of mandir based Arthvyavastha, after reading the remaining seven facets, an Indian will surely become a Hindu, as each of the facets encompasses facts, instances and case studies which highlights the glory of Bharat systems, ethics, art and samruddhutta (prosperity).
As readers will start reading part I of this book, they will realise how deeply, they were ideologically colonised for a long time. Read this book at your own risk, if you want to stick to your presumptions or speculations regarding to Hindu Arthvyavastha system or you’ve held a view back then, of demanding hospitals & schools instead of mandir at Ayodhya, because this book will change your perceptions forever with interesting facts. This book is a must read for all devotees and especially for atheists or people of materialistic approach. Saying this for a reason.
As this amazing book covers a lot of things the remaining parts of this book i.e. part II, part III and part IV will be covered in the next review article.
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