Temple Treasures: State or Religious Property?

Chaitanya Shah
Maharashtra National Law University, Mumbai

Volume III, Issue III, 2020

The entire society revolves around the concept of wealth and therefore the relationships that form out of this have various economics and political aspects attached to it. In the same way, temple treasures that have accumulated throughout centuries is related to various economic and political aspects. Further, it has another very important facet of human society weaved in; religion. Religion forms a very important part of life as it forms the basis of the entire thought process and belief system of the society. As was propounded by Auguste Comte, the development of society is seen through the development of the collective though process of the society.

Further, the research paper will attempt at analysing the close relationship between religion and economics. As it is inherent to any institution to strive for becoming as large as possible, the religious institutions are the same and in this strive they evolve as one of the premier economic institutions. The research paper will therefore analyse the allocation of resources takes place in the context of the religious institution. Another major aspect taken into consideration is politics as the allocation of resources and wealth forms the base of most power structures and the paper will attempt at analysing how the power structure in religious institutions is different or similar. The presence of classwhich may stem from wealth or position in the power structure is also prevalent in these religious institutions. Moreover, the paper will extensively use the legal aspects of this relationship between the state and the religious institutions. Therefore, the paper will attempt at synthesising all these aspects to know whether the temple treasures comes under the authority of the state.

 

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