The Hindu Temple v1.c8.s2.1

v1.c8.s2.1

“Let him who wishes to enter the worlds that are reached by sacrificial offerings and the performance of religious obligations (iṣṭāpūrta) build a temple to the gods, by doing which he attains both the results of sacrifice and the performance of religious obligations” (Br. S. LV. 2)³¹. The commentary explains that sacrificial fire offerings are called ‘iṣṭa’ and all other offerings are ‘pūrta’. The latter include the construction of tanks, wells, lakes and houses of the gods (devatāyatana). The sacrificial offerings secure for the sacrificer a place in heaven (svarga) according to the merit of his sacrifice. The Yajamāna, the sacrificer, is the donor of the temple; his sacramental person, transformed by his sacrificial and other offerings is transferred to heaven. The duration of his stay there is permanent (nitya) according to Kāśyapa, quoted by Utpala, the commentator of the ‘Bṛhat Saṃhitā’; this is secured by the enduring nature of the shrine. Essentially, the acts and rites in building the temple are sacrificial³². With these go lasting concrete and beneficial results embodied in the building, active in all the planes into which the temple symbolically reaches both in this and the other worlds.³³ Where the Fire-altar, Agni, acted mainly as instrument and sacramental body of the sacrificer for the attainment of his ultimate purpose, the temple ostensibly stays as a monument of its function. Its permanency depends upon its substance and on many factors which work on the monument while it stands, and affect it in time.