When the Covade -19 lockdown was swept into India in 2020, they brought, they brought To keep a religious life. The temples were closed, large gatherings were banned, and personally rituals were suspended-for the first time in people living memories. Millions of devotees were suddenly disconnected from their usual spiritual routines from daily temple tours and hymns (community singing sessions) to weddings and last rites. In Kanpur, northern India, a 35 -year -old pastor Mohit Tiwari received calls from distressed devotees who found ways to continue their spiritual ways. Without access to priests or temple services, many people turned to phone calls and video links for guidance. Only when the idea of the beginning came.
“I realized that we could do everything in practice, whether it was a spiritual mantra, offering or rituals based on the name of an individual and a gutra (ancestral lineage). Online Poojoboking.com, A “spiritual tech” company offers several traditional Hindu rituals that can be booked online and practically performed through video.
“The economy package, which costs 7,100 ($ 84), includes a priest and a three-day ritual-which is equal to a week of wages for a skilled citizen worker in India.”
“Soon, people began to join me in a direct series to participate in Pooja (worship),” he said.
After what started as a crisis, it has turned into a complete industry. The whole of India, A wave of spiritual tech platform Change the priests, the rituals of the livelihoods, into the Gamed 3D experiments, and turn the spells into the AI -Infield audio.
In the past some years 950 Fath Tech Startup The country has emerged, almost specifically focusing on Hinduism.
These platforms are re -imagining centuries -old religious rituals for the smartphone era.
Photo: Tantra Sudhana app
“Me or my parents hardly get time to visit a temple or manage all the arrangements for a paja, so it is a more easy option for us to visit an online,” said Mohit Sharma, 24, a psychology student based in New Delhi. Stuffy.
Critics have raised concerns that digital facility can encourage levels of engagement rather than spiritual depth. They argue that by transforming complex traditions into transaction services, apps are at risk of promoting superstitions or hollowing out centuries -old ways.
“Today’s youth want immediate answers,” said Rajanisi, an educational and writer who studied spirituality and technology. “But in spirituality, the depth comes slowly. Technology gives you a part of knowledge, but it requires questioning and balance – and it is missing.”
For Tiwari, the convenience of performing online rituals does not diminish their meaning. Instead, it offers a practical way to stay connected with the daily requirements. “Whether it is online or personally, Pooja is the same,” Tiwari said. “It’s all based on name and Knife. What does it matter is intended – Sankalp. “
This virtual ritual model has found the audience moving beyond India’s borders. The Tiwari team is questioning both India and abroad, with almost HALF half -monthly clients logged in countries like the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.
The Tiwari platform offers different packages according to different requirements and customer budgets, from “economy” options to “premium” services. For example, A famous wedding spell This is “highly effective” for people who delays or obstacles to finding proper life partner are available in three different levels. The economy package, which costs 7,100 ($ 84), includes a priest and a three-day ritual-which is equivalent to a week of wages for a skilled citizen worker in India. The premium package, which costs, 000 51,000 ($ 605), provides a complete experience of seven days with five priests and a wide 125,000 recitation of the mantra. This is the cost of two months fare for a two -bed apartment in many Indian Metro Polytan cities.
Still business is on the rise.
Photo: Tantra Sudhana app
More Indian, especially citizens look for thousands of years of online spiritual services, such as a platform like Tiwari no longer have experienced experiences. They are tapping into a wide, administered faith economy where millions of rupees are already changing hands and profitability is only increasing.
“We receive every kind of request for emotional healing, imbalance of planets, spiritual growth and career blows,” Tiwari said. “Everyone has a reason, and they no longer need to step into a temple.”
Sacred screens and start -up scripts
The religious tech sector of India has faced an increase in alka in the past half decade, especially in the last half decade. Now it is attracting investors by the growing demand for digital religious services. Startup picked up in space Million more than 50 million In the venture funding in 2024, the last year increased by 3 4.3 million.
The roots of this rapid development have the roots of a cultural land where formal beliefs are deepened in daily life. Religious behavior is essential for both personal and social routines. 2021 Pew Research Center studies, About 97 % Indian adults say religion is very important in their lives. This is the highest rate globally. This sustainable devotion has created a fertile ground for startups that offer ways to integrate spirituality into a digital lifestyle.
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Reflecting this pace, the spirit of spiritual welfare in India is likely to reach the market 8 168.8 million by 2030With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.4 % from 2024 to 2030. The expansion has been photographed by India’s wider religious and spiritual market, worth about $ 58.56 billion in 2023.
“People are getting more interesting about religion and spirituality, but they have little time to do physically, so we are offering these services online,” said the Vedic Sadhana Foundation’s COO, who runs a series of spiritual digital platforms and websites.
Foundation runs a suit of apps, including Correctional appWhich offers consumers 3D environment, such as performing complex rituals, such as often with AI-Assisted guidance, offering or shouting slogans. Their audience? Basically children aged 18 to 45.
On the screen, users travel to a virtual space like a Temple where they can choose offers, light formal fire and mantras, which all guide through audio and visual indicators. The app’s built -in AI describes the meaning behind every process, which helps users understand that it is not only a way to perform rituals, but also why it is done.
Shastri said, “We are not trying to change the tradition.” We’re trying to meet people where they are – on their phone. “
The Sadhana app has seen an extraordinary growth, in which only more than 2.7 million rituals were performed last year.
Well cheered, the platform recently launched “Tantra“A famous 3D experience that allows consumers to perform inward rituals, which once requires deserted forests or sacred places.
“For example, there are procedures where someone performs rituals on the body or anyone in the middle of the jungle. A person presents in fact, you know, some parts of the body show the divine concept so that it can be identified.”
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Other offerings include Astro Sadhana and Vedaviaa Ai for personal treatment of personalities, a spiritual chatboat that is designed to answer complex religious questions about the symbolic meaning behind the spells, scriptures or rituals. For devotees to achieve more sacred interface, there is even a custom built-in “Vedic Android tablet”-which has been marketed as a digital altar. The altar is already loaded with the scriptures, hymns and formal tools made, which offers a dedicated holy place for daily practice. Users can listen to devout music, read religious text, or follow the rituals without disturbing from other apps.
Shastri said, the goal is to move beyond passive consumption and to help users actively engage in spiritual exercise from the screen.
The ‘commodity’ of sacred traditions
Most of these “spiritual apps” interface combines soft -sized musical music with deep visuals. In the background, the slogans of Sanskrit shine as the shining slogans, while digital beads are slowly suppressed by virtual shrines. Color palette gives rise to sacred places: deep red, saffron gold and brown screen of clay. When the user goes through rituals, the screen gradually controls the decoration idols and the sanctuary spaces, which imitates the slow, respectable speed of real -life worship.
These are all shameful reactions to fear … Many of them exploit this fear.
Yet, for all their innovation, some experts in the country argue on apps that make sacred traditions commodities, and turn faith into another purchase -based service.
“These are all shameful reactions to fear,” said Rajanshi. “When people feel insecure, they look for a pillar of help – sometimes it is worship, sometimes this knowledge is astronomical. But many of these apps exploit this fear.”
Rajwanshi has warned that when access to technology information can be democratic, it also threatens to flatter deep philosophical traditions in transaction services. “Spirituality gives us wisdom,” he said. “But wisdom cannot be downloaded like an app. It is not deeper but through interupulation, inquiries, deep and quick reforms.”
Several apps run on a tiger between devotion and digital consumerism. With an AI -made stream, pushes the information that reminds users to pray, and the leader boards for devotional movements, the user’s journey is a mirror of the mirror of fast fitness or finance apps.
Nevertheless, millions of consumers provide a sense of contact, relief and control in the platform, especially in the dye -dimensional populations, which can go away from the temples and the community. “This is probably the only way to connect with our traditions in this fast -paced world,” Sharma said.
After all, the digitalization of faith is not just a technological change, it is a cultural. In a country where religion has long been around sectarian, statue and temple seizures, festivals, and inherited rituals, migrating to the screens of rituals is basically used and transmitted to how the belief is used, and here.
In many traditions, even the physical process of reaching a temple, whether it means climbing several hundred steps or traveling in states, was considered a form of repentance and devotion. Nowadays, instead of engaging deeply with the Scriptures or spiritual inquiries, many young consumers find immediate solutions for relationships, careers or emotional explanations.
“Spirituality is going through a UX design again,” Tiwari said. “You no longer need to climb 300 steps in any temple. You just need a phone. “
