Kingship and the temple

Appadurai, in his chapter “Kings, sects, and temples: South Indian Sri Vaisnavism, 1350-1700” primarily about two roles of the king, and his relationship with local agents (sectarian leaders) with regard to temple affairs.

First and foremost, one must understand that there was always a sort of interface between the temple and the kings – the sectarian leaders. It was these sectarian leaders who were actually concerned with the day to day running of the temple. Naturally, the position of the sectarian head was a powerful one, subject to many political tensions. The complex nature of the relationship between the king and the sectarian leaders has already been discussed, so I will refer to it no further.

Endowment refers to the gifts and donations given to the temple courtesy the king. This conformed to the tradition that gifting Brahmins was an important role of the king. In due course of time, this process of endowment became inherent to, and absolutely necessary for the sovereignty of the king.

At the same time, it contributed to the redistributive process on the whole. Indeed, Appadurai goes on to outline that the temple played a crucial role in extending the control of the Vijayanagara kings into new constituencies, absorbing them into the empire. It is, at the same time, interesting to note while temple building and related activities gained popularity among the kings of South India, there was a decline in the status and favours granted to the ‘brahmadeyas’ (settlements of highly learned Brahmins, which were granted favourable tax settlements).

At the same time, the relationship between the ruler and temple was quite a complex one. This brings us to the second role of the king, namely, protection. While the administration and day to day affairs were in the hands of the local agents, the kings were called upon to settle disputes, in a purely administrative capacity. The distinction Appadurai tries to make is that there was no legislative power in the hands of the kings.

This is a very important distinction, and needs to be examined properly. What it essentially means, is that the judgement of a king was case specific, and context specific. It was not binding on other members of the public, or to those not involved in the case. Crucially, the judgement did not become a ‘law’.

One can immediately sense the point Appadurai is driving at when he takes the trouble to expand upon this aspect. The British rule brought with it the concept of courts, and laws. To put it simply, any judgement would pass into law, while the concept of ‘precedents’ was established, meaning that to decide the outcome of one particular case, the court could always refer to the judgements delivered in an older and similar case. The implications these alien and momentous changes had on the society at the time of their introduction, and the confusion it caused can only be imagined.

The depth of Appadurai’s analysis can be seen, when in the later parts of the chapter he goes to great lengths to trace the split in Vaisnavism. Similarly, he traces the rise of the Sanskrit School and the Tamil school (the debate between these schools being whether to give religious discourse in the restrictive Sanskrit, or the vernacular Tamil).

Having explained the rise in position and status of the ‘Tirupati’ temple complex, Appadurai proceeds to his study of the Parthasarathi temple. His conclusions, based on the dated inscriptions relevant to the time period we have been talking about, are that the Parthasarathi Temple, in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, was subject to a vast and complex relationship between the kings, the sectarian leaders, and the institution of the temple itself. It is noticed that this relationship conforms to the patterns that have been discussed in this blog post, and the earlier.