Joanne Punzo Waghorne, Syracuse University

The Temple-Tomb in Tamilnadu

The popularity of temples dedicated to the living presence of deceased Shaiva and Vaishnava saints continues to grow in urban Tamilnadu, especially in Chennai.  The replicas of saints’ samadhi/brindhavan often occupy the sanctum along with their own or other divine images.  The most popular manifestation of this mixing of temple and tomb are the four thriving Shirdi Sai Baba centers in metropolitan Chennai—each with a replica of the Hindu/Muslim saint’s famous tomb in Maharastra with a life-like image in front usually within a sanctum.  In the far suburb of Nanganallur, the Raghavendra Swamy Brindhavan houses a replica of the tomb (Brindhavan) of a seventh-century Vaishnava saint whose Brindavan remains a pilgrimage site in Mantralaya in western Andhra Pradesh.  The website for the Mantralaya Brindhavan includes a retelling of the saint’s entering the samadhi-state as his disciples encased his deathless body with stone slabs creating the Brindhavan on the site.  The less-known Apparswamy Temple in Mylapore attests to the century-old precedent of surrounding a tomb with temple in this urban environment.  In 1851, a disciple of a Saiva saint built a temple around the entombed body of his master after he “took samadhi.   In 1929 disciples photographed poet-saint Pambam Swamigal as he entered the samadhi-state just before his entombment in the present Sri Pamban Swamigal Math in Tiruvanmiyur.  But in the case of this math, devotees successfully stopped attempts build a temple complex arguing that the site should remain a place for meditation and prayer only.   What do these temple-tombs tell us about the complex problem of defining a temple and the nature of its presiding deity?  In the light of the common association of sacred sites and tomb in both Islam and Christianity, what do these temple-tombs reveal about Tamil-Hindu sensibilities? And, why have such temple-tombs become so popular in a major urban center this era of globalization?