Introduction
In today’s fast-paced world, survival constitutes not just bread and butter but also technology. The Internet’s launch on January 1, 1983, transformed the entire world to an extent beyond human comprehension.[i] Every minuscule aspect of our lives transformed – our interactions, our work, and most importantly, our realities. As humans became more accustomed to the presence of smartphones, the Internet, and artificial intelligence (AI), society was influenced by these emerging technologies as well, including the sacred world of religion.
Aiding the overall functioning of the realm, it introduced newer forms of spiritual engagement for almost every religion in the world—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and others—through the medium of virtual worship and digital scriptures. Various websites on the Internet started redefining themselves as the ‘sacred sanctum’ where people regularly met to pray and meditate along with fellow followers of the same religion. Hinduism, too, gladly rode this wagon of change, undergoing numerous reforms and transformations with respect to technology.
Hinduism, the spiritual haven of 1.2 billion people in the world, is considered to be one of the oldest religious traditions thought to have originated before 2000 BCE. [ii] The practice of performing ‘pujas’, worship rituals offering light/flowers/food/water to the divine, is an indispensable component of Hinduism. A devotee has the chance to have a ‘darshan,’ or brief moment of communion with the divinity, during a puja. While pujas are held at homes by family members on varying frequencies as well, depending on household norms, in most cases, practising Hindus prefer visiting centuries-old temples to seek darshan with the deities on special occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, and so on, in addition to regular visits seeking blessings for overall prosperity and good wealth. Temple pujas are more elaborate than domestic ones, and they are performed by a ‘pujari’, which translates to ‘temple priest’. Unlike domestic deities that are “invoked,” temple deities are thought of as “residents” of the temples and are “awakened” through pujas.[iii] Following a donation, the priest usually chants mantras to the deity, conveying the devotee’s requests and prayers. The devotee is then given back ‘prasad’, which is food that has been consecrated by the deity.
India, one of the countries with a predominantly Hindu population, has been a forerunner of ‘Digital Hinduism’ since 1996. The adoption of digital media and services by a diverse religion such as Hinduism exemplifies sociologist Anthony Gidden’s description of globalisation as an ‘intensification’ and ‘compression’ of time, as well as Benedict Anderson’s ‘imagined communities.[iv] What began as informational websites about Hinduism, such as Hindunet.org, along with a few websites by Hindu Nationalist organisations, has evolved into a new world of ‘e-darshans’ and ‘livestreaming’. The most significant development in this series of technological advancements has been the creation of websites offering ‘internet pujas,’ which allow internet devotees to perform a puja from anywhere in the world in any temple of their choice and have the ‘prasad’ delivered to their doorsteps. But how did an age-old belief like religion, particularly, Hinduism, interact with something as new as the internet?
How the Screen Becomes Sacred
E-religion, or ‘religion online,’ as Danish author Morten Hojsgaard would put it, is the new shrine where worshippers around the world seek solace. Regular visits to holy sites on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even annual pilgrimage have been supplanted by an online religious life. It also allows new converts to learn, understand, and practise their new faith in the comfort of their own homes. Hojsgaard observed how “the first wave of religion online, in the 1990s, was mainly for nerds and young people and techies” (Sullivan, 2007). This provides insight into how the practical intersection of religion and technology was a figment of the imagination for the aforementioned groups, rather than something that would have been accepted by traditional groups of worshippers. What caused the phenomenon to shift? Hojsgaard attributed the shift to the youth of the time, who began to question traditional institutions and desired the freedom to create their personalised forms of worship.
This shift in Hinduism can also be attributed to the Hindu scriptures. Anthropologist Christopher Fuller’s work, “The Camphor Flame – Popular Hinduism and Society in India (1992),” sheds light on how Hindu texts allow for the flexibility to abbreviate pujas based on occasion, needs, and preferences. The arrival of the Internet broadened the definition of ‘preferences’ and ‘needs’, particularly among India’s rapidly growing middle class, which began to discover the wonders of the Internet in the late 1990s while preserving traditional customs. During this period, when people were still in awe of the Internet, two Indians were struck by the concept of ‘digital devotion’.
Established in 1999, Saranam.com claims itself to be the “1st and most trusted online Hindu puja service.” Mahesh and Mervyn, both software engineers from the coastal town of Chennai, founded the company against the backdrop of India’s information technology revolution. In an interview with the Washington Post, Mahesh explained how he came up with the idea after his marriage when his mother-in-law asked him to visit 15 temples with the bride in 3 days to seek blessings. Mahesh found the task “exhausting” and wondered how easy it would have been if he could have done it via the Internet.
Following this, Mahesh never looked back, co-founding Saranam.com with Mervyn with financial backing from a local businessman, and within a few weeks, it was fully operational, with a network of temples and priests across India. The website currently receives 2903 monthly visitors, with 97% coming from India, followed by the United States of America and Singapore5. Visitors’ top keywords include ‘online puja,’ and its main competitors are ‘visittemples.com’, ‘onlinepuja.com’, and ‘pujaservices.com. [v]
Popularly known as ‘Uber for God’ websites like Saranam.com and its competitors are forming the cornerstone of India’s religious tech industry. [vi] In the early 2010s, following the success of e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, more and more entrepreneurs sought opportunities to expand in a variety of sectors, including religion. This gave rise to two major types of religious technology startups, particularly for Hinduism: ‘Puja by Proxy’ and ‘Uber for Pujari’.
Websites such as Saranam.com follow the first type, in which the entire ritual is delegated to a service that either uses a network of employees to conduct a puja on your behalf at a specific temple or hires a priest to perform the ritual service in your absence. Most of these websites provide a list of rituals and pujaris from which customers can choose at a set fee, while others assign the task to any of the pujaris in their network. In the case of ‘puja by proxy’ startups, the “proof” of the ceremony’s completion takes various forms, including livestreaming, parcelling of CD/DVD recordings, and prasad by post. The second type of business, like PujaNPujari.com, operates on a web or app interface that allows customers to book a priest to visit their home and perform a puja, similar to Uber but for pujaris. [vii]
A Boon or Bane?
Located in Kolkata, the Kalighat temple is one of the most popular temples in the country for ordering pujas online. It provides a variety of puja options, ranging from the cheapest, which only includes prayers, to the most expensive, which includes prayers, offerings of flowers/food, CD/DVD proof, and prasad couriered to the devotee. A devotee outside of India will be charged anywhere from $60 to $230, depending on the puja ordered, whereas devotees in India will be charged between $30 and $90. [viii]
Using ‘Internet Pujas,’ individuals worldwide can access these sacred locations that would otherwise be exclusively accessible to those residing nearby. The accessibility factor also applies to historically disadvantaged groups, who are denied entry to the temple grounds due to their ethnicity, caste, gender, and so on. The Somnath Temple in Gujarat, India, is considered the first of India’s twelve ‘Aadi Jyotirlings‘ and requires ‘non-Hindus’ to obtain permission from the temple’s general manager’s office before entering the premises. However, their website offers devotees a variety of ‘online pooja vidhis‘ for varying fees. One can also order Prasad from their online store and receive free darshan from the Sanctum 24 x 7 via live streaming. [ix] These online features provide non-Hindus with equal access to the deity without the need for permission.
But are ‘Internet Pujas’ homogenizing religion or giving birth to new divisions? What we need to understand first is that, except for online pujas directly administered by temple authorities, such as at Gujarat’s Somnath Temple, the majority of these websites offering online pujas are religious tech companies attempting to break into the market and owned by an individual or a group of individuals. Most of their company policies are based on and tailored to the owner’s beliefs rather than reflecting the temple’s traditions. While the Kalighat Temple in Kolkata welcomes non-Hindu visitors, many businesses prohibit non-Hindus from placing orders for the temple. [viii]. This demonstrates how authority shifts from the temple administration to startup owners.
Second, trust is what drives these types of ventures forward. A devotee sitting thousands of miles away will never be able to verify the legitimacy of these companies’ claims, so he/she often puts his/her trust in God’s name. While one of these websites displays the option to perform ‘online puja’ at the Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati, Assam, the first thing one sees on the temple’s official website is a public notice stating that online apps and services providing online pujas are not legally approved by temple authorities. [x] Most customer reviews for e-puja.com include comments stating ‘fraud’ and ‘scam’. [xi] The legitimacy of websites impacts the overall influence of the Internet on religion, which can even push people back to traditional methods of worship.
And third, and perhaps most importantly, is not ‘internet puja’ limited to urban-middle-class/upper-class Hindus who can afford both an Internet connection and the expense of an online puja? In India, only 24% of rural households have access to the Internet, and only 14% of them use it regularly. [xii] When one looks at the online pooja process as a whole, one finds that the prerequisites are not limited to funds and an Internet connection. Rural households may find it difficult to participate in interactive activities such as live streaming and Zoom calls when a steady and fast connection is needed. Most significantly, to use any of these services, a devotee needs to be digitally literate, which is a rare occurrence in rural areas where people have difficulty accessing even basic education. In addition to widening the already existing socioeconomic gap, this inaccessibility causes these two groups to diverge in terms of religion and culture according to digital accessibility. Thus, the very idea of communal sense that group meditation or prayer seeks to instil in people is undermined.
Even though the Internet made the desktop a diety, will e-religion ever succeed in democratising religion? Time will tell if the answer is known.
i. A Brief History of the Internet. (n.d.-b). University System of Georgia. Retrieved August 17, 2024, from https://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit07/internet07_02.phtml
ii. Hindu Countries 2024. (n.d.-b). https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/hindu-countries
iii. Puja (Hinduism). (2024b, August 15). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puja_(Hinduism)
iv. Gittinger, J. (2021, September 22). Digital Hinduism. Oxford Bibliographies. Retrieved August 17, 2024, from https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195399318/obo-9780195399318-0178.xml
v. Statistics and data from Saranam.com’s official website were gathered on August 7, 2024, using Semrush.com (https://www.semrush.com/projects/), a website traffic tracker.
vi. Mehta, A. (2015, December 10). Uber for God: Inside India’s Religious Tech Industry. Intelligencer. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/12/uber-for-god.html
vii. Staff, B. (2020b, October 13). Clicking, Waiting, Praying: The Mantras of Hindu Tech Startups. THE BASTION. https://thebastion.co.in/ideas/clicking-waiting-praying-the-mantras-of-hindu-tech-startups/
viii. Mallapragada, M., & Scheifinger, H. (2010). Hinduism Case Study – Technology 2019. 112–113; 644–645. https://hwpi.harvard.edu/files/rpl/files/technology_hinduism.pdf?m=1597683785
ix. Data from the official website of the Somnath Temple, located in Gujarat, were gathered on August 7, 2024, using https://somnath.org/
x. Data from the official website of the Kamakhya Temple, located in Guwahati, were gathered on August 7, 2024, using https://www.maakamakhya.org/
xi. Data from the Google Reviews of EPuja.com were gathered on August 7, 2024, using https://g.co/kgs/c6Uprg4
xii. Bridging the Digital Divide: Empowering Rural India – NIIT Foundation. (2024, June 12). NIIT Foundation. https://niitfoundation.org/bridging-the-digital-divide-empowering-rural-india/
***
Himasweeta is an aspiring researcher from Guwahati, Assam. She’s interested in delving into and specialising in the study of religion and society with a focus on North-East India.