Effect of mere presence of idols of deities and conduct of festivals.

This appeal has been filed by the committee of management of an institution known as the Bodendraswami Mutt, Govindapuram, by its managing member N. Ganesa Aiyar, a mirasdar in the Kumbakonam taluk, against an order of the District Judge under section 84(1) of the Hindu Religious Endowments Act, declaring this institution to be a temple.

In the first instance, the Hindu Religious Endowments Board claimed the institution to be a mutt and a right to levy contribution on this basis. On objection taken by the committee of management, the Board came to the conclusion that the institution was not a mutt but a temple. There can be no doubt that the institution had its origin in the tomb ok samadhi of one Bondendraswami, a holy man and a saint. To commemorate his memory, as is not unusual, a matam was constructed round the samadhi in which poojas and religious observances were being done. The main ground on which it was held to be not a mutt but a temple was that there were several big vigrahams or idols of Sri Gopalakrishna, Sri Rama, Lakshmana, Venugopal and Anjaneya and also pictures of Sri Radhakrishna, Panduranga and others and that puja was being done not to the samadhi but to these idols and further more that the public were allowed to worship in the matam without any hindrance and that Utsavams were conducted and these deities taken in procession.

The evidence for the committee of management was to the effect that no pooja as such was done to the idols but was offered only to the tomb or samadhi. The presence of the idols or vigrahams was explained by the fact that religious minded persons, who worship these idols in their houses, kept them in the matam as they found that they could not keep up the pooja in their houses. The learned District Judge took the view that it made very little difference whether pooja was offered first to the samadhi or to the vigrahams or the other way about, and that the performance of these festivals can have no connection at all with a samadhi or tomb. He attached a good deal of importance to the fact that the public were allowed freedom of access to the samadhi for purposes of worship.

In Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Board v. Deivanai Ammal1, Rajamannar, C.J. and Venkatarama Ayyar, J., confirming the judgment of Krishnaswami Nayudu, J., in a petition-filed on the original side of the High Court, held that the mere fact that members of the public were allowed to worship in a temple is no ground to hold it to be a public temple. Reference in that decision was made to the observations of the Privy Council in Mundacheri Koman v. Atchuthan Nair2, that it was not in consonance with Hindu sentiment to exclude worshippers from a temple even when it is private. The case considered in Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Board v. Deivanai Ammal1, was that of a Vinayaka temple situated in China Bazar Road, Madras, which was successfully claimed as a private temple, although it had several broad features usually found in a public temple, such as taking out of deities in procession on special occasions, the existence of utsavamurtis and chapa-rams, performance of regular pooja by a gurukkal and so on. The features of this institution, therefore, on which the learned District Judge based his decision will not necessarily make the institution a temple.

Sri S. Viswanathan for the appellant has urged that a samadhi or a tomb constructed to commemorate the memory and religious life-work of a human being can never fall into the category of a temple intended for the worship of God or Gods. “Temple” as defined in section 9(12) of the Act means a place by whatever designation known, used as a place of public religious worship and dedicated to, or for. the benefit of, or used as of right by, the Hindu community or any section thereof, as a place of religious worship. I find it extremely difficult to bring worship which has grown up round the tomb of a human being within the category of religious worship. Sri S. V