The scribe who built forts

He can be termed as one of the first, if not, the first statistician of  the world. He was also a scribe and he was born in a clan of scribes. A multi-talented man, he is best remembered for his revenue reforms which formed the basis for land reforms carried out by the British and subsequently by independent India.

An astute solider, he was also a well-known for building forts and it was he who built the imposing Rohtas fort, now in Pakistan. He was also the first Hindu to lead a full-fledged Mughal Army.

One of the nine gems of the Mughal Emperor, Akbar, he was also a highly skilled soldier. A little known fact about him is that he was responsible for providing internal security to Akbar.

A devout Hindu apart from being a man of literary tastes, he repaired, renovated and built several temples across India. He came to the help of the Tirumala temple of Srinivasa when the Nizam of Hyderabad tried to capture it.

He is even credited with having repaired a temple in Karnataka and contributed significantly to the Srinivasa Temple in Tirumala apart from the Kashi Vishwanatha temple in Benaras.

This man is none other than Raja Todar Mal (Todarmal), one of the Navaratnas or nine gems in the court of Akbar. He is remembered even today for his revenue reforms that were first adopted by the Afghan ruler, Sher Shah Suri and subsequently by the Mughals. Later, they formed the basis for Sir Thomas Munroe during the period of British India to introduce the ryotwari system in India.

Todarmal was born in Laharpur, Uttar Pradesh, in a Bhatnagar family. While one account says that he was a Kayastha Brahmin, others say he was a Khatri from the Punjab and that his place of birth was in the Punjab.

Whatever the history of his birth, we know that he first served under the renowned Afghan ruler, Sher Shah Suri. When Sher Shah died and Humanyun, the Mughal, managed to regain the Delhi throne, he imprisoned Todar Mal but released him after being told of his academic and scholastic qualifications.

After several years, Todarmal  joined in the service of Akbar as a clerk and rose in 1560 to become the Finance Minister of Mughal India. He held several other positions and was also in charge of the Mughal Mint.

He built the magnificent Rohtas fort under direction from Sher Shah Suri. The fort today is a UNESCO World Heritage monument, testifying to the engineering skill of Todar Mal.

He also built a fortress palace at Laharpur in Uttar Pradesh.

He was also actively involved in the construction of the Mughal forts at Fathepur Sikri and Lahore in 1583 and also the Allahabad fort which was originally built by Emperor Ashoka.

He also built the magnificent Moti Mahal palace in Allahabad which still exists today.  

Todar Mal rebuilt or renovated several temples cross India and in Karnataka, he rebuilt the Anjaneya temple in Mulabagal, Kolar.

This temple was built by Arjuna, one of the Pandavas, after the Kurukshetra war. There is a small statue of Todar Mal in the temple

Another temple that is associated with Todar Mal is that of Srinivasa in Tirumala. This temple too has a statue of Todar Mal. He also renovated the Kashi Vishwanatha temple in Kashi.

Todar Mal is also credited with having built the temple to Chitragupta in Patna, Bihar.

Members of the Kayastha community worship Chitragupta among other Gods. Chitragupta is a scribe for the Gods and Kayastha means scribe in Sanskrit and it goes without saying that Todar Mal was a renown scribe.

The Kayastha caste reflects its traditional role as record-keepers and administrators of the State. Kayasthas from historical times have occupied the highest government offices, serving as ministers and advisors during mediaeval Indian period and the Mughal Empire, and they also held important administrative positions during the British period.

Todar Mal, historians agree, was true to his caste and he was a scribe of the highest order. Not only was an excellent book keeper, he was also a competent accountant. He also managed the Mughal mint in Bengal. He also introduced standard weights and measures. He understood statecraft well and Emperor Akbar had high regard for him.

He became the Finance Minister of the Mughal Kingdom in 1575 and the Chief Finance Minister in 1582. He came up with a book on land records which then was known as Todar Mal’s Rentroll.

Very few know that Todar Mal was a man of letters. He translated the Bhagavatha Purana from Sanskrit  into Persian. He believed a single language could unify the people and its country and he, therefore, batted for Persian as the administrative language and sole language of the Mughal Kingdom..

According to the Puranas, Kayasthas are descended from Chitragupta. The Puranas invest Chitragupta with the task of recording the deeds of humanity, upholding the rule of law and judging whether human beings go to heaven or hell upon death

Raja Todar Mal also

The Mathurs also claim Todar Mal as their own. They are a sub-caste of Kayastha.

The  Mathurs are the only sect who are referred to as direct descendants of a Vedic God in the religious texts and the only ancestor worshipping sect of Hinduism also called Chitranshi/Devputra. Kayasth’s are said, in the Vedas and Puranas, to have a dual-caste as of Kshatriya and Brahmin. Mathurs today are  concentrated across North Indian states of  Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi and Rajasthan. They too were scribes.

Even in the ancient times, they were the people whose profession was writing.

The Mathurs trace their genealogy to Brahma. This is how it goes. When Brahma had created all the fourVarnas, he thought that there must be someone to keep records and account of each Varna. He then started meditating and closed his eyes.

When his meditation was over, he found a radiant figure holding a pen and an inkpot standing before him. Brahma then called him Chitragupta and asked him to be the keeper of  records. He said as he had been created from Brahma, he shall be called Kaya and his progeny Kayastha.

This is how the word Kayastha originated. Since then,  reading and writing has been the hereditary occupation of the Kayasthas.

As far as Mathurs go, they are one of the many sub-castes of the Kayasthas.

The Mathurs trace their ancestry to Charu, one of the twelve sons of  Chitragupta and Irawati. Incidentally, there are a class of Brahmins who call themselves Mathurs and they trace their ancestry to Mathura.

There are also a class of Vaishya who call themselves Mathur Vaishya and trace their ancestry to Mathura. There are also some Bengalis who are known as Mathur Babus. According to the Puranas, Charu resided at Mathura-and so his descendants came to be known as Mathurs.

The Mathurs served under the Hindu Kings of Mathura till Qutb-ud-din conquered it. Subsequently, some of them learned Arabic and served under the courts of Turkish and Mughal Emperors while others fled Mathura in search of work.

In the ancient times, the Mathurs worked in the posts of Dewan under the Surya Vanshi Kings who ruled Ayodhya. The Suryavanshi kings included Ikshvaku, Raghu, Dashrata and Rama and it is said that Mathurs have worked under them and served them. The Mathurs are subdivided into als and gotras. People belonging to the same al claim to have descended from the same immediate ancestor and share a common totem.

Gotra is a larger group being composed of a number of al.

According to tradition, there were only eighty-four big villages in Brij Bhoomi, the empire of Mathura. It is probably on that account that there are eighty-four further sub-sects called Als of the Mathurs.

Coming back to Todar Mal, he died in 1589.

Another Todarmal was Pandit Todarmal (1719–1766). He was a Jain and an eminent scholar and writer. He stayed in Jaipur. His son, Gumani Ram, founded Gumanpanth, a strict form of Jainism.

We also have a Todar Mal in the Punjab. He was called Diwan Todar Mal Jain and he was a businessman. He belonged to Kakra village, a few miles from Patiala. In Sikh history, he is remembered for buying a small piece of land for the cremation of the dead bodies of Mata Gurji, , the mother and Zorawar Singh and Fateh Singh, the two younger sons of 10th Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh in 1704 A.D, by paying an exorbitant price to the owner of the land.

He had to cover the whole piece of land with gold coins (ashrafis) in a vertical position, as he was asked to vertically place gold coins on the land and only that much land was given to him which he could cover with gold coins. He later also made arrangements for their cremation.

The Hindu and Muslim rocks

Thousands of years ago, when Hanuman was returning back home-flying in the air- from Sri Lanka, he saw a huge boulder which was slowly rolling down from its perch on a hill.

He saw the havoc that the boulder would pose to the people of the village below the hill if it rolled down. He then pushed back the huge boulder with his thumb and ensured that it would remain firmly rooted to the ground.

To prove this legend, there is still a thumb mark that you can see on the face of the boulder. The thumb impression is frozen on the rock and it is popularly called the “Hand of God”.

The rock stands as it is today, precariously perched at the edge of the hill. It would look as if it is going to fall any time but it has remained as it was put back by the money God. In case it falls today, it still has the potential to destroy at least half of the town below the hill.

Locals believe that the rock would stay as it is as long as civilization exists. There are so sure of the hand of Hanuman that nobody talks of the boulder or even fears that it would roll down.

This rock has got its own name, one of the few to do so. It is the Hindu rock. By the way, there is a Muslim rock too.

The Muslim rock too has romantic tale to narrate.

A little over two and half centuries ago, a Muslim soldier, who was the son of a Palegar of Budhikote, climbed the rock here and offered prayers. He was born in Budhikote and he knew the area around very well. A devout Muslim, he clambered on to the rock and offered prayers facing Mecca.

There are impressions or marks visible on the rock even today which testify to this act. The name of the man who prostrated on the rock and prayed regularly every day for several years: Hyder Ali, the father of Tipu and among the first Mysoreans, to take on the British.   This  perhaps could be the only hill which has rocks named after two religions and each with its own fascinating history.

This is the hill of Mulabagal in Kolar district. The hill rises over the ancient temple town and looks like a guardian of the area.

For the uninitiated, Mulabagal is on the way from Bangalore to Tirupathi. As people crammed in all types of vehicles whiz by, only a few care to stop at the once bustling Eastern capital of the Vijayanagar. Even among them, only a handful make it to the hills, which for the most part of the year lies deserted and desolate.

Even trekkers, climbers and Nature give this hill a miss. They  prefer several other hills around Mulabagal which are more tall or more difficult to climb than this hill.

The hill presets an interesting study in geology. It mainly  comprises a series of rocks of various shapes and sizes and of course the most prominent among them is the Hindu and the Muslim rocks.

The hill is not only a place of trekking climbing but it has its link with history too. Epigraphs and history suggests that on October 4, 1768, the Battle of Mulwagul, which was part of the First Anglo-Mysore War was fought on this very ground.

It was here on October 3 , that Hyder  saw the army of the Nawab of Arcot, Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah. The Nawab had allied himself with the British  in their war against Hyder.

Hyder was on his way back to Bangalore from Guuramkonda when he saw the Nawab’s garrison billeted at hill here.

Hyder then quickly fell on the Nawab’s men and the British sent reinforcements under Colonel Wood.

The combined forces of the British and the Nawab recovered the lower fort of Mulabagal but were unable to beat Hyder out of the upper fort. The next day-October 4- Colonel Wood went out with a few companies to investigate movements and he was quickly surrounded  by Hyder soldiers.

When the battle began, another office, Colonel Brooks, and two other British men of arms dragged two cannons to the top of a nearby hill. Brooks then called out saying “Smith! Smith!, even as he fired the cannons at Hyder’s well-tuned army.

Both Hyder and the British thought that Colonel Smith was arriving with reinforcements. Hyder ordered his troops to fall back, enabling the almost defeated Colonel Wood to rejoin with Brooks and other reinforcements from Mulwagal.

Hyder realised his tactical error and renewed his attack, but the British and the Nawab held firm. Both sides lost men-Hyder close to 1,000 and the British 200.

However, the ferocious manner in which Hyder had attacked the British convinced Colonel Smith that he would be unable to effectively besiege Bangalore without first defeating Hyder in open battle.

The East India Company was left redfaced at the result of the battle and it  blamed Smith for the failure to decisively defeat Hyder. It  recalled him to Madras.

Hyder then regrouped from here and took the opportunity to besiege Hosur. Here again both Hyder and Wood met. Colonel Wood marched in relief of the town. As Wood approached, Hyder  raised the siege, attacked Wood's column and overran his baggage train in the Battle of Bagalur.  Hyder  captured supplies and arms and  drove Wood in disgrace toward Venkatagiri.

Wood was recalled and the East India Company replaced him with Colonel Lang. This was off no consequence as Hyder went from strength to strength and even came upto the gates of Madras and the British were forced to negotiate with him.  

Nothing remains of the battle now save the name of the town Mulabagal. In ancient days, it was known as Mudalabagilu meaning the eastern-door.

It was the eastern most frontier and, therefore, the entrance to the Vijayanagar empire. The town boats of a massive Hanuman temple with the idol being consecrated by Arjuna. Sage Vasishta is believed to have installed the idols of the main deity Srinivasa, Padmavati and Rama-Sita-Lakshmana at the temple.
The town is associated with the Ramayana and there are several tales about it. One of the hills still has the ruins of a fort which is worth a visit.

Another hill nearby is famous for being the first point the sun rises throughout Karnataka.

Mulabagal is about 100 kilometres from Bangalore and it is easily accessible by road. It is situated on the four-laned national highway.

The oldest temple in India

One of them is in North India and another in the South. Both lay claim to being the oldest structures of their kind. If the one in North says it has an uninterrupted tradition of worship and pooje for thousands of years, the structure in the South says it is as old as the first century BC.

These two are among the earliest recorded and archaeologically important temples of India. They both can claim to be the oldest chronicled temples in India. 

The Mundeshwari temple is Kaimur in Bihar claims to be the oldest functional temple in north India. There is a stone inscription near the temple which dates it back to 108 AD. Similarly, the Shiva temple at Gudimallam near Tirupathi in Andhra Pradesh has a Linga which is dated to the 1st century BC.

Thus, both the temples can lay claim to be among the oldest in India. Though India has many temples, infact thousands of them, which date back to the times of Ramayana, Mahabharat , Puranas and even Vedas, these two temples are unique as they have recorded history of their existence in the form of inscriptions and even texts.

If one were to look out for the oldest Hindu temple functioning today, and not  in ruins, then we can point to the Ma Mundeshwari  Temple.

Ever since the temple was founded in 108 A D, rituals and worship have been taking place here without a break. This makes it one of the oldest and continuously functional temple in the world.
The Ma Mundeshwari temple is atop the Kaimur Hill and it is  octagonal in shape. The sanctum sanctorum of the shrine has an idol of Devi - Mundeshwari. There is also a ‘Chaturmukha Shivalinga in the sanctum sanctorum.

Thus both Shiva and Shakti are worshipped here. There are also indications that this temple in ancient ages was a part of the Tantric cult which is quite popular in Eastern India.
There are idols of other gods such as Ganesha, Surya, Vishnu and Mother Goddess. The temple attracts a lot of devotees during festivals like Ramnavami and Shivratri.

Interestingly, the present caretaker of the temple is Muslim, yet another example of the religious harmony at the grassroots level in India.
Coming down south to Gudimallamm the Shiva Temple here is located in Kalahasti taluk of the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh.

The Linga is supposed to be the earliest such idol discovered so far and it has been assigned to the 2nd or 1st century BC.

Gudimallam is a small village and it is just 7 miles away from Renigunta railway junction. Though a small village, it is important historically and also archaeologically because of the Shiva temple.

The Shiva temple is also known as Parasurameshwara Temple.

This name of the temple is mentioned in the inscriptions. However, these inscriptions do not say anything about the original builders of the temple. They register the gifts made to the temple like land, money and cows for the conduct of daily worship in the temple.  Black and Redware shards of the 2nd or 3rd century AD have been  excavated in 1973.

There are several inscriptions dating back to the Pallavas, Gangas, Banas and Cholas on the walls of the shrine. One of the earliest  inscription belongs to Nandivarma Pallava (802 AD). All the inscriptions mention the interest taken by the donors and their gifts to the temple. Yet, none of them give the name of  the village as Gudimallam.

The floor of the sanctum is below the floor level of the Antarala and Mukhamantapa. The figure of Siva carved on the linga resembles a hunter. The Linga is carved out of  hard dark brown stone.

The Linga  is about 5 feet in height and one foot in thickness. The nut of the linga is clearly differentiated from the shaft by a deep slanting groove cut near the Linga. A beautiful two handed image of Shiva in sthanaka posture an also be seen.

On the front portion of the Linga,  Shiva is shown standing on the shoulders of the apasmarapurusha. The Deity holds a ram in his right hand and a small vessel in his left. There is a battle axe (Parasu) resting on his left shoulder. His head is adorned with Jatas arranged in the Jatabhara fashion. He wears a number of rings in his ears and a unique girdle with a dangling central portion.

Shiva wears a dhoti fastened at his waist with a beautiful vastra-mekhala.

The Linga is believed to be a manifestation of the Trinity, with Brahma at the bottom, Vishnu in the middle and Shiva on top.

There is a beautiful legend on how the Linga came to be consecrated.
Parasurama had beheaded his mother, Renuka, at the behest of his father. Parashurama was then advised by rishis to come to this  temple and worship the linga as  penance for having killed his mother.

When Parashurama came here, he found the temple near a pond.
A single divine flower used to surface every day, which Parashurama offered to Shiva. He had appointed a yaksha, Chitrasena, to guard the flower from being destroyed by wild beasts. In return for Chitrasena’s service, Parasurama brought one animal and toddy everyday.
One day, Chitrasena, a devotee of Brahma, felt tempted to worship Shiva himself. An enraged Parasurama attacked Chitrasena when he found the flower missing.
The battle lasted for 14 years, and was so fierce that a pallam, or pit, was created at the site. This is how Gudipallam or “temple in the pit” became Gudimallam over time.

Unable to choose the victor, Shiva is finally said to have merged both Parashurama and Chitrasena into himself, and the figures still etched on the Linga show the hunted beast and toddy pot in Parasurama’s hand, Brahma as Chitrasena, Vishnu as Parasurama and Shiva as the Linga complete the idol.
There are smaller shrines of Parvati, the six-faced Kartikeya and Suryanarayana in the court yard of the temple. The Sun God or Surya is shown standing erect with a flower in each hand, one of the earliest known depictions.
A unique event associated with the temple is that the sanctum gets flooded every sixty years. A small underground tank and a duct connecting the tank to the Shiva Linga can be seen even today. These remain stone dry except during the 60-year phenomenon when water suddenly gushes through with such force that it rises over the column of the Linga, flows over the top and subsides as suddenly as it has risen.

The last time this happened was on December 4, 2005. Monument attendant P. Seenappa, has recorded the incident in the temple register. The water level then falls and remains at six inches for four hours, after which it disappeared as though it was never there.
Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) officials say that the water table in the area is at a depth of 300-350 feet Therefore, there is no tangible explanation for the phenomenon.

Devotees, however, prefer to believe that the water comes all the way from Kashi to perform abhisheka to the Linga.
Another unique feature is that the rays of the Sun pass through the grills carved on the stone walls twice a year during the solstices (Uttarayana and Dakshinayana) and fall directly on the forehead of the main Shiva Linga.
Gudimallam is 31 Km from Tirupati and 13 kms from Renigunta.

The temple maze

The first thing that strikes you about our country is the number of Hindu temples. These temples, to whichever God they are dedicated, can be recognised by their towers or gopuras.

In Hinduism, there are 33 crore gods (actually there is only one god and the rest are god like, according to Madhwacharya) and it can be safely assumed that there are temples for many of them. Though the exact number of temples cannot be counted, we can assume that there are several lakhs of temples in India. This is apart from Jain temples and cave temples.

In south India, the temples are massive and the architecture marvellous. The South has the maximum number of temples with

Tamil Nadu having 34,000 of them, Andhra Pradesh 43,000, Karnataka 34, 000 and Kerala 28,000 temples. This is the list compiled by the respective state Governments and they ass up to a lakh and eight thousand.

The list does not include private temples and those run by the trust. Thus, their numbers increase substantially. Apart from individual temples, boards such as Travancore and Cochin Development Board runs the Bagavathy temples and the have 1800 temples under their fold. The TTD too has many temples under its control as has the Mantralaya matha of Raghavendra Swamy.

Kanchi as a city has 108 ancient temples.  It also has some of the largest and richest temples of Tamil Nadu.

However, if you want to know the largest temple complex in India, the credit goes to Ranganatha in Srirangam. It is called the largest living temple in India and the second largest in the world after Angor Wat. However, the are no poojas at the Angor Wat and they are only a cluster of ruins.

The Srirangam temple occupies an area of 156 acres. After this comes Aksharadham in Delhi, Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu, Annamalai temple in Tiruvannamalai, Ekambeshwara temple in Kanchi, Jambukeshawa temple in Trichy, Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, all in Tamil Nadu.

However, if you take only the temple spread, the largest in India is the Annamalai in Tiruvannamalai and the largest temple complex including the temple, temple area and grounds according to Guiness Book of Records is the Akshardham in Delhi.

The tallest Gopura is that of Murudeshwara in Murudeshwar near Bhatkal near Karwar, Karnataka. It is 249 feet and this followed by Ranganatha temple of Srirargam (243 feet) and Annamalai temple in Thiruvvanamalai (216 feet).

The north has as many temples as the south but they are comparatively smaller. Even a small state like Himachal Pradesh has over 2,000 temples while the Brij area comprising places where Krishna lived, stayed and played-Agra, Mathura, Brindavan, Gokul, Ujjain-has 5,000 temples and most of them consecrated to Krishna.

In the West, Maharashtra seems to have taken the lead with 45,000 temples. Gujarat and Rajasthan follow closely behind. The Kurukshetra belt in Haryana has a large number of temples dedicated to the  Mahabharata heroes, Pandavas, Krishna, Vishnu and Shiva. The Gangetic belt of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh has a large number of temples and most of them are on the Ganges or its tributaries.

If a temple is to be measured by its riches, then the south outpaces all other regions. Considered the second richest temple in India, the Venkatesha or Srinivasa temple in Tirupathi has the highest number of footfalls for such a structure worldwide. It has an annual visitage of 40 million pilgrims.

The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) also holds the distinction of being the largest gold holder outside central banks in the world.

Infact, temples in India are beloved to hold much more gold  than  the Reserve Bank of India. India's official gold reserves is estimated to be around 750 tons. The TTD alone holds around 200 tons of gold in its vaults. On average, the temple receives 10 kg of gold every week. (Contrast this with the 800 tones of gold that India imported in 2012).

Lakhs of followers line up each day here just for view lasting barely a second and proffer their rich offering. It is not only Balaji who receives Gold. Many other temples like the Krishna temple in Udupi, the Raghavendra Swamy Temple in Mantralaya, the Sai Baba Mandir in Shirdi, Siddhi Vinayaka temple in Mumbai, Krishna temple in Guruyavoor, Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala, Vaishno Devi temple record massive inflow of gold, jewels and cash.

India’s temples collect so much of this stuff they don't know what to do with it. Some like the TTD mint gold coins and sell it back to the devotee. Others just keep on hoarding not knowing what to do. An example is the huge riches discovered in the Ananthapadmanabha swamy temple.

Though there is no dispute that the treasure, valued at over Rs. 1 lakh crores, belongs to the royal family of Trivandrum, nobody knows what to do with it. Unfortunately, it is only now that an inventory of the riches are being made. But what about the riches and jewels and temple belongings of others.

Raja Raja Chola, who is credited with having built the massive Brihadeshwara temple in Tanjavur, has inscribed on the temple walls all that he had given, including gold, jewels, ornaments, vessels. What happened to them. Where are they.

The Brihadeshwara temple is so large that he assigned 4,000 cows, 7,000 goats, and 30 buffalos just to supply the butter required for the lamps to be lit within the temple and the temple yard. Well, there is an inscription about this too in the temple.   

Raja Raja Chola and Rajendra chola meticulously mentioned the articles they had gifted to the temple. These records have stood the test of time but what about the items.

Similarly, Krishna Deva Raya, the Vijayanagar Emperor, gifted priceless articles to several temples including those at Tirupathi, Kalahasti an Vijayanagar itself. What happened to them. And  what about the riches of the Vijayanagar temples. Many of the temple were no doubt destroyed by the marauding Muslim armies of the Deccan in 1565 but what about the treasures they had. The temple jewels had been removed before the armies swept into Vijayanagar and till date there is no mention of them.    

The richest temple in India now is the Ananthapadmanabha Swamy in Tiruvananthapuram in Kerala. The second richest is Tirupathi followed by the Mahalakshmi temple of Kolhapur in Maharashtra.

By the way, the world’s largest Hindu temple project is coming up in East Champaran district in Bihar at Kathwalia on Chakia-Kesaria main road, just five km away from the tallest Buddhist stupa at Kesariya.

It is slated to look like the Angkor Wat temple of Cambodia. It will be a five-storey temple complex with a total built-up area of around 6 lakh square feet.

It will have 18 sanctum sanctorum and 18 shikhars (spires) and they will be constructed with Chunar stones which Emperor Ashoka had used in his inscriptions. The presiding deities will be Rama, Sita, Lav, Kush and Maharishi Valmiki.

This temple is expected to be taller than the Brihadeshwara Temple in Thanjavur and larger than the Akshardham Temple in Delhi.
So the one thing that we can see here is that people are constructing temples-one arger than the other, bigger and higher than the other. Well, what happens to the daily offerings that lakhs of devotees so liberally give in the temples. The maze of temples that are in India need to be restructed so that they can contribute to the good of society and also help reconstruct the locaity in which they are located.
Is is not time that the money that goes into the temples are channelised in a proper manner involving devotees. At present, there are only a handful of  temples which involve devotees in its management.