Navapuram stands as an architectural and philosophical marvel | a living laboratory of a spiritual culture | curiosity is worshipped and critical thinking is nurtured | Global TV
By Global TV Features Desk
Welcome to Navapuram Mathatheetha Devalayam, the Secular Temple of Knowledge, located in Prapoyil, Kannur. This secular Temple is redefining the very nature of sacredness by placing knowledge at the core of devotion. A meaningful transformation is taking place in the serene dignity of a temple. Here, the idol is a book. The devotees are readers. The offerings are also books.
The Temple Where Knowledge is God
Founded in 2021 by the visionary Prapoyil Narayanan, the Navapuram Temple is a poetic metaphor and a functioning space of spiritual inquiry, intellectual engagement, and community celebration. Mr. Narayanan’s insight was simple yet profound: “Knowledge is the foundation of liberation.” He envisioned a space where wisdom itself is revered as divine, and books are honoured as the sacred carriers of light.
“Books are the embodied form of knowledge,” Mr. Narayanan explains. “They contain civilizations, questions, discoveries, dreams. How can they not be divine?”
And so, atop a tranquil hill surrounded by forests and fresh air, he consecrated a temple; not to a deity with a name and form, but to books themselves.
A Temple Without Boundaries | And Without Religion
True to its name, Navapuram Mathatheetha, meaning beyond religion, the temple transcends every boundary. It is a sanctuary where the Vedas, The Bible and the Quran may sit side by side with the Gita, Marx, Dostoevsky, and Dr. Ambedkar. Literature, philosophy, science, poetry, and politics; all genres are welcome. The temple is open to all. No rituals of exclusion. No conditions for entry. Here, reading is prayer. Writing is offering. Dialogue is devotion.
The very structure and philosophy of the temple challenge society’s entrenched notions of sanctity. What if every home had a sacred corner where a bookshelf replaced the altar? What if reverence shifted from blind belief to conscious reading?
Festivals of the Intellect
Twice a year; in April and October, the temple hosts literary festivals unlike any other in the country. Book discussions, writer meet-ups, reading circles, public dialogues, and cultural programs replace the usual rituals of incense and chanting. Instead of priests, the temple has curators of literature. There is exchange of thought. Hundreds of people arrive to contribute; they offer books as sacred gifts. These books form part of the temple’s ever-growing library, now numbering over four thousand volumes.
The festivals are fully free of cost. So is the accommodation and reading space, which invites guests to stay, explore, write, reflect, and rejuvenate their inner worlds.
A Spiritual Architecture for the Future
Navapuram stands as an architectural and philosophical marvel; a living laboratory of a spiritual culture, where curiosity is worshipped and critical thinking is nurtured. It dares to ask: What happens when learning becomes sacred? What if temples could be libraries? Can books guide the moral compass of society?
Navapuram quietly builds sanctity out of silence, sentences, and the solitude of reading. It opens the door to a new spiritual aesthetic, one where reason and reverence co-exist.
The Larger Message: Reading as Resistance
The Navapuram experiment is not just an isolated spiritual endeavor; it is a sociopolitical statement. In a time when book bans, information control, and intellectual apathy are spreading like toxins, a temple devoted to books is a powerful act of resistance. It reminds us that the freedom to read is as sacred as the freedom to pray. That libraries are temples of democracy. And that no society can evolve unless it respects both the written word and the thinking mind.
This temple teaches us to bow not in fear, but in curiosity.
From Hilltop to Horizon: A Model for the Nation
What began on a humble hill in Kannur could very well become a national phenomenon. Imagine temples of reading in every town, where knowledge is stored and celebrated. Where the next generation is taught that the most powerful prayer is a question well asked and well read.
Navapuram opens our minds to the possibility that India’s next renaissance may not come from political upheaval or economic boom; but from the simple, revolutionary idea that a book is divine.
A Sacred Turn of the Page
As schools and institutions organize routine events, Navapuram Temple offers a deeper metaphor. It teaches us that reading is a skill, a habit, and a sacred act, one that connects us to ourselves, to our ancestors, and to our future. May this temple inspire a thousand more, and may we all; regardless of faith, learn to worship knowledge, not noise. Because in the end, a book doesn’t just sit on a shelf. It sits on a throne.
