The Temple as a Manifest Form of BEING

The Temple as a Manifest Form of BEING

The Hermeneutic investigations into the dynamics of UNDERSTANDING, how by various processes, the human understanding initially full of IGNORANCE or metaphysical DARKNESS becomes gradually ILLUMINATED, is taken up here by Tirumular in relation to the TEMPLE, the central feature of Agamic Hinduism which has survived despite many revolutionary changes, severe attacks and so forth from the ancient days. Temple hymns are sung to this day  as they were during the times of the Sumerian En Hudu Anna (c. 2200 BC). Temples continued to be built all over the world even now as was the case throughout the history.


Each time a temple is erected, the presence of BEING is acknowledged.


This should not be surprising for, if we are to believe Tirumular, the TEMPLES are ways BEING presents Himself and hence one can say a kind of AVATARA of BEING Himself. And since BEING is indestructible so would be the temples. 


But temples as such have the aura of the sacred and which makes some pray while others destroy them.


Why is this so?


Tirumular explains it in the following verse as below.



919

aalaya maaka  amarn_ta panjcaakkaram
aalaya maaka amarn_tavit tuulam pooy
aalaya maaka vaRikinRa cuukkumam
aalaya maaka amarn_tirun_ taaneeMeaning:


BEING stands as Temple of the physical elements (capable of being perceived by all with the senses five). But this is only the Surface Structure( tuulam) and when the seeing goes into the depths and sees the Deep Structure (cuukkumam) that remains hidden and which configures the external shape of the Temple, one can see BEING standing there as the cause of it all.


Comments:

The etymology of the word 'aalayam' is uncertain. It could be from 'aal' meaning to spread out extensively. It could also mean the power as in aal-al> aaRRal. It could also be from 'aal' meaning the Bodhi Tree. Whatever the etymological roots, it is clear that for Tirumular it is a SHAPE of BEING Himself, BEING showing Himself in a way so that even the ordinary human beings are sensitized on some aspects of the Depths. 


In delineating how the Temple has the character of the SACRED, he brings the hermeneutic notions of TEXT with duality of structure -the Deep Structure (DS) and Surface Structure (SS). The DS of a temple is the mantra complex si-vaa-ya-na-ma and which is a differentiated form of the undifferentiated and primordial Logos Om. These mantras are indicative of the FIVE fold processes of presencing, sustaining, withdrawing and as super-ordinate to them that of disclosing and concealing Himself. BEING is so uncanny that unless He chooses to disclose Himself, we have no way of sensing His presence. And it so happens that out of His aruL and nothing else He chooses to disclose His presence through causing there to arise the temples as such. Each a time a temple arises on the horizon, BEING makes Himself present there making the locality itself sacred.


This is the PROOF of the reality of BEING.


The visible form of the Temple as gross shapes (tuulam) of the subtle (cuukkumam) have certain aura special to it and the source of which is BEING Himself. At the deepest level of all living temples is BEING Himself who creates the aura that lead even ordinary individuals sense the sacred there and which does the FIVE processes - discloses a metaphysical truth, sustains it, annihilates the earlier and through these makes a person see some aspects of the divine and realize that  there are other aspects still hidden or concealed.



ULLAGANAR

( Editing and re-paragraphing by his student )