SOME OF OUR RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS

If a person belonging to a caste violated the rules of caste or committed any immoral act, he was made to lose caste; he was degraded and ostracized from the community. This practice had a deterrent effect on the people and hence the moral tone of the community was high. 

Now, however, with the loosening of restrictions, we have to adopt other legal means to keep people on the right path, and they are not so efficacious as the dread of losing caste in times of yore.

Temples play an important part in the practices of our religion. The saintly lady Avvayar said that one should not live in a place where there is no temple. In every Hindu village, especially in South India, there is a Vishnu temple at one end and a Siva temple at the other. At bathing ghats, near rivers and tanks there is a temple dedicated to Ganesa.

What is the purpose of a temple? Though the Christians and Musalmans do so, we do not attach importance to congregational prayers. Worship with us is a private, personal affair in the privacy of the home or standing alone before the Sun, that divine source of energy and life. But why are temples built and why do we go to them?

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