Tamil Nadu Blitz - Kanchipuram and Non-Hindus

Our driver showed up at 7 AM as promised. Jean-Marc and I were going to RACE through Tamil Nadu over the course of 11 days - a trip that, if all went according to plan, would take us from Chennai to Kanyakumari and back.

Our first stop was Kanchipuram, one of the major pilgrimage and temple-rich sites of Tamil Nadu. We stopped by the Kailasnath, Kamakshi Amman, Devarajaswami, and Vaikunth Perumal temples - and realized that we REALLY needed to pick and choose which temples we were going to visit or be templed-out by day 2. I found it amusing that every priest said their temple was the oldest temple in Kanchipuram.

At the Devarajaswami temple we had our first encounter with the "No non-Hindus" policy. It seems that at many South Indian temples, non-Hindus are not allowed to enter the temple premises. I will go on the record to say that I think the rule is short-sighted, impossible to enforce, and just plain not Hindu-like. First of all, seeing how the devotees act in a temple - understanding the reason for darshan, aarti, etc. - is EXTRAORDINARILY instructive on what it means to live the life of a Hindu. Second, non-Hindus then just assume that ALL temples are like that and never go visit any - seriously, I met a tourist who was leaving India and hadn't set foot inside a temple after 2 weeks. Unbelieveable. And third, from a purely monetary standpoint, if you even just welcome a non-Hindu to the home of God and teach him something, maybe he will WANT to leave a donation - why stop a revenue source at the door?

But my bigger problem is with the enforcibility of such a policy. Frankly, there's no standard description of a Hindu. So when the priest pointed to Jean-Marc and said no non-Hindus, I asked, "How do you know he's not a Hindu?" Flustered, he just said "No non-Hindus allowed" and walked away. But I wasn't going to let it go just yet. So I lied and said, "He IS a Hindu." The following back-and-forth ensued:

Priest (in Hindi): Does he speak Hindi?
Me (in English): No, but neither do I. But you don't have to speak Hindi to be Hindu.
P: Well if he's not Indian he's not allowed in.
Me: So what about all the non-Indian Hindus like the Hari Krishnas?
P: Well where is his mala, his tilak, his dhoti?
Me: Where is MY mala, tilak, and dhoti?

At which point JM, sensing I was getting angry, stopped me and just said forget it. It became clear to me that they employed an arbitrarily shifting standard that revolved around the only easily-discernible characteristic - skin color. It made me sick to think that, in a sense, it was a manifestation of racism. Too dramatic a statement you think?

I don't think so. I have no issue with a religious organization requesting non-adherents to remain outside the premises. It is simply a matter of respect. But the standard should then be that any adherent of the religious tradition should be allowed in. I think that the fear that a non-believer "pollutes" the place is bogus. If a non-believer can successfully masquerade as a believer- no one is any the wiser to the "pollution." But even that's a weak description of the underlying idea. The underlying problem is one of trust. There is simply no trust that non-believers will remain outside on their own cognizance. So instead, we sacrifice the essentials of our religious faith by definining it with arbitrary standards - like skin color.

Making race into an -ism is called racism.

What I REALLY don't get though, is that a temple claiming to belong to a religion like Hinduism - one that is so accepting of all paths to Brahman - could even think to sponsor such an idea as keeping non-Hindus out in the first place! In this life we may be born into a Hindu family, but in the next life, there's no guarantee. On top of that, if we believe that all avatars are just manifestations of the same supreme Brahman, it seems stupid to say that any person who believes in God should not be able to have His darshan. Bah. It all just seems so horribly... non-Hindu.