India’s non secular app market is booming

When COVID-19 lockdowns swept throughout India in 2020, they introduced religious life to a halt. Temples had been shuttered, massive gatherings banned, and in-person rituals suspended — many for the primary time in residing reminiscence. Hundreds of thousands of devotees had been out of the blue lower off from their traditional non secular routines, from day by day temple visits and bhajans (neighborhood singing periods) to life-cycle ceremonies like weddings and final rites. Within the north Indian metropolis of Kanpur, Mohit Tiwari, a 35-year-old priest, started receiving calls from anxious devotees in search of methods to proceed their non secular practices at house. With out entry to monks or temple companies, many turned to telephone calls and video hyperlinks for steerage. That’s when the thought for his startup struck.

“I noticed we might do all the things nearly whether or not it’s non secular mantras, choices or rituals, based mostly on a person’s identify and gotra [ancestral lineage]. There was no want for bodily presence,” stated Tiwari, who then based OnlinePujaBooking.com, a “non secular tech” firm providing a wide range of conventional Hindu rituals that may be booked on-line and carried out nearly by way of dwell video.

“Quickly individuals began becoming a member of me within the livestream to take part in poojas [worship],” he stated.

What started as a disaster workaround has since developed right into a full-fledged business. Throughout India, a wave of spiritual tech platforms remodel monks into livestream hosts, temple rituals into gamified 3D experiences, and mantras into AI-generated audio.

Over the previous few years more than 950 faith tech startups have emerged within the nation, nearly completely specializing in Hinduism.

These platforms are reimagining centuries-old non secular rituals for the smartphone period — and for city millennials and Gen Z customers who need their spirituality as customized and frictionless as a procuring app.

“I or my mother and father hardly discover time to go to a temple or handle all of the preparations for a puja, so performing it on-line is a extra handy possibility for us,” 24-year-old Mohit Sharma, a psychology scholar based mostly in New Delhi, instructed The Verge.

Critics have raised issues that the digital comfort could also be encouraging superficial engagement somewhat than non secular depth. They argue that by turning complicated traditions into transactional companies, apps danger selling superstition or hollowing out centuries-old practices.

“In the present day’s youth need prompt solutions,” stated Anil Okay. Rajvanshi, an instructional and creator who research spirituality and know-how. “However in spirituality, depth comes slowly. Know-how offers you a piece of information, however extracting knowledge from it requires questioning and steadiness — and that’s lacking.”

For Tiwari, the comfort of performing rituals on-line doesn’t dilute their which means; as a substitute, it gives a sensible solution to keep related with religion amid day by day calls for. “Whether or not it’s completed on-line or in particular person, the puja is identical,” Tiwari stated. “It’s all based mostly on the identify and gotra. What issues is the intention — the sankalp.”

This mannequin of digital ritual has discovered a rising viewers effectively past India’s borders. Tiwari’s group fields inquiries from each India and overseas, with practically half of his month-to-month purchasers logging in from nations just like the US, UK, and Australia.

Tiwari’s platform gives a variety of packages to swimsuit totally different wants and budgets of purchasers from “financial system” choices to “premium” companies. For instance, a popular marriage mantra that’s “extremely efficient” for these going through delays or obstacles find an appropriate life companion is on the market in three totally different tiers. The financial system package deal, priced at ₹7,100 ($84), consists of one priest and a three-day ritual — roughly equal to per week’s wages for a talented city employee in India. The premium package deal, priced at ₹51,000 ($605), gives an entire seven-day expertise with 5 monks and an intensive 125,000 recitations of the mantra. That’s practically the price of two month’s hire for a two-bedroom condo in lots of Indian metropolitan cities.

But the enterprise is booming.

Extra Indians, particularly city millennials search non secular companies on-line with platforms like Tiwari’s not being area of interest experiments. They’re tapping into an unlimited, under-regulated religion financial system the place hundreds of thousands of rupees are already altering palms and the potential for revenue is barely rising.

“We get all types of requests relating to emotional therapeutic, planetary imbalances, non secular development and profession setbacks,” Tiwari stated. “Everybody has a cause, and so they don’t have to step right into a temple anymore.”

Sacred screens and startup scripts

India’s non secular tech sector has skilled a meteoric rise within the final half a decade particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s now drawing elevated consideration from traders, fueled by rising demand for digital non secular companies. Startups within the house raised more than $50 million in enterprise funding in 2024, up sharply from $4.3 million the earlier 12 months.

This fast development is rooted in a cultural panorama the place ritualistic religion is deeply woven into day by day life. Spiritual practices are integral to each private and neighborhood routines. In keeping with a 2021 Pew Analysis Middle research, nearly 97 percent of Indian adults say faith is essential of their lives — one of many highest charges globally. This enduring devotion has created fertile floor for startups providing methods to combine spirituality into digitally related existence.

Reflecting this momentum, the non secular wellness app market in India is projected to achieve $168.8 million by 2030, with a compound annual development price (CAGR) of 15.4 p.c from 2024 to 2030. This enlargement is mirrored by India’s broader non secular and non secular market, valued at roughly $58.56 billion in 2023.

“Persons are changing into extra curious in direction of faith and spirituality however they’ve little time to do it bodily so we’re providing these companies on-line,” stated Vikram Shastri, COO of the Vedic Sadhana Basis, which operates a collection of non secular digital platforms and web sites.

The inspiration runs a set of apps, together with the Sadhana app, which gives customers a 3D atmosphere to carry out complicated rituals like fireplace choices or chanting, usually with AI-assisted steerage. Their viewers? Primarily 18 to 45-year-olds.

On display, customers navigate a temple-like digital house the place they will choose choices, gentle ritual fires and chant mantras, all guided by step-by-step audio and visible cues. The app’s built-in AI explains the which means behind every motion, serving to customers perceive not simply find out how to carry out the ritual, however why it’s completed.

“We aren’t making an attempt to switch custom,” Shastri stated. “We try to fulfill individuals the place they’re — on their telephones.”

The Sadhana app has seen distinctive development, with over 2.7 million rituals carried out final 12 months alone.

Buoyed by success, the platform additionally just lately launched “Tantra Sadhana,” a gamified 3D expertise that permits customers to carry out esoteric rituals that when required secluded forests or sacred areas.

“Like, for instance, there are practices the place one would do rituals on prime of a corpse or one would do in the midst of a jungle. One would really provide, , elements of the physique to the divine as visualization to point that give up to the divine. So, these are very esoteric practices the place one could not even know the steps of find out how to go about it,” Shastri stated. “So, we now have introduced that forth in a 3D game-like setting the place the character or the protagonist really goes round within the forest, picks up the components, and performs the ritual.”

Different choices embrace Astro Sadhana for customized astrological cures and Vedavyasa AI, a non secular chatbot designed to reply complicated non secular questions on mantras, scriptures or symbolic meanings behind rituals. For devotees in search of a extra sacred interface, there’s even a custom-built “Vedic Android Pill” — marketed as a digital altar. The altar comes preloaded with curated scriptures, bhajans and ritual instruments, providing a devoted sacred house for day by day follow. Customers can hearken to devotional music, learn non secular texts, or observe together with guided rituals with out distractions from different apps.

The purpose, Shastri stated, is to maneuver past passive consumption and assist customers actively interact in non secular follow even from a display.

‘Commodification’ of sacred traditions

The interface of most of those “non secular apps” blends gentle ambient temple music with immersive visuals. Glowing oil lamps flicker as Sanskrit chants play within the background, whereas digital garlands sway gently from digital shrines. The colour palette evokes sacred areas: deep reds, saffron golds, and earthen browns dominate the display. As customers transfer via rituals, the display slowly pans throughout ornately designed idols and sanctum areas, mimicking the sluggish, reverential tempo of a real-life puja.

But for all their innovation, some consultants within the nation argue these apps commodify sacred traditions, reworking religion into yet one more subscription-based service.

“These are all shamanic responses to concern,” stated Rajvanshi. “When individuals really feel insecure, they search a pillar of help — generally it’s worship, generally it’s astrology. However many of those apps exploit that concern.”

Rajvanshi warns that whereas know-how can democratize entry to info, it additionally dangers flattening deeply philosophical traditions into transactional companies. “Spirituality offers us knowledge,” he stated. “However knowledge can’t be downloaded like an app. It comes from introspection, questioning, going deeper and never by fast fixes.”

A number of apps stroll a tightrope between devotion and digital consumerism. With AI-generated horoscopes, push notifications reminding customers to hope, and leaderboards for devotional acts, the consumer journey more and more mirrors that of health or finance apps.

Nonetheless, for hundreds of thousands of customers, these platforms provide a way of connection, consolation, and management significantly amongst diaspora populations who could also be removed from temples and neighborhood. “That is most likely the one solution to be rooted with our traditions on this fast-paced world,” Sharma stated.

In the end, the digitization of religion isn’t just a technological shift, it’s a cultural one. In a rustic the place faith has lengthy been communal, embodied, and centered round temple visits, festivals, and inherited rituals, the migration of rituals to screens could essentially reshape how perception is practiced, transmitted, and even understood.

In lots of traditions, even the bodily act of reaching a temple, whether or not it meant climbing a number of hundred steps or touring throughout states, was thought of a type of penance and devotion. In the present day, as a substitute of participating deeply with scripture or non secular questioning, many youthful customers search prompt options — for relationships, careers or emotional readability — with out the time or effort as soon as related to bible study.

“Spirituality goes via a UX redesign,” stated Tiwari. “You don’t have to climb 300 steps to a temple anymore. You simply want a telephone.”