The temples of Tamil Nadu, final installment.

Anyone who has enjoyed the temples of the Maya, the Aztecs, or those of Angkor Wat and wondered what it must have been like to see them in action need only travel to South India. That shit is still rocking: the Vedic chanting and fire and phallic worship of brahmin priests dates back 3000+ years. Each syllable must be pronounced with perfect clarity: as a spell or incantation it is not so much what is said but how; that accuracy traces back to the formation of brahmins-as-keepers-of-sacred-knowledge and therefore to the construction of the entire caste system.

Dravidian (South Indian, untouched by Muslim invasion) temples are cosmic diagrams where the sanctum sanctorum is concieved as a womb, within which lies a large (we saw one seven metres circumference) lingam or phallic symbol. The entire structure therefore re-creates the cosmic dance; birth/death, expansion/contraction. etc. Put differently, the temple is a hermaphrodite engaged in auto-copulation. Built of stone, primarily post and lintel, the interiors are dark, musty, and overheated. Corridors containing countless small shrines branch off from the sanctum. Every surface is sculpted in powerful mythology. Pilgrims shuffle around barefoot in the dark. The air is sluggish with smoke, sweat, incense, piss. Occasionally during puja (the offering ceremony) thousands will congregate at the lingam. Buring ghee (butter) is sprayed on the floor. Huge piles of incense are lit. People chant mantras, dance, wail, beat themselves, bang tambourines...all in time with one massive bell and drum that erupts from the dark to overcome thought.

Hinduism in the temples is an intensely personal form of worship, with the believer engaged in a negotiation with his/her chosen diety on very personal terms: "Give my son a prosperous business, O Ganesha, and i will offer you one thousand days of rich offerings." In other words, Hindu dieties need their worshippers as much as the opposite is true. Hinduism also provides a unique distinction between secular and religious activities. Unlike in, say, Christanity, where a believer is expected to follow a code of moral conduct in his/her everday life, the Hindu can be a perfect bastard in business and home affairs as long as all ritually purifying observances are met. This is very useful for gangsters and politicians who pay a priest a monthly retainer to perform puja on their behalf and are then guaranteed an uplifting reincarnation regardless of secular behaivior.

Forms of worship are, unsurprisingly, also divided along caste lines. A middle-class Indian informed me over lunch that: "Only stupid, uneducated peasants worship all the small dieties and lingams (phallic symbols). They cannot concieve of the glory of the one true God (Brahmin) ans so will never achieve moksha (liberation from reincarnation). High-class Hindus are apparently fond of drawing a line between their tenuous monotheism and the 'embarrassment' of their (undeniably) pagan countrymen.