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Click for a close up of mandirs from around India, big and small |
Most Hindus worship (puja) every day at home and have a shrine there. A shrine can be anything from a room, a small altar or simply pictures or statues. Family members often worship together. At the shrine, Hindus make offerings to a murti. A murti is a sacred stautue of God, or a god or goddess.
The Hindu building for communal worship is called a mandir. The temples are dedicated to different gods and are the focus of religious life.
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An example of a public Mandir- Delhi, India |
The word mandir derives from the Sanskrit mandira, meaning a dwelling place. A mandir is a home to God as represented by the deity singled out for honour within the building's inner sanctum. The mandir is believed to embody divinity, with the ornamental gavashkas (windows), for example, acting like the ears of the divine body.
What does a mandir look like?
If the gleaming white limestone building of the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Neasden, north-west London, reminds you of a mountain range, pitted with caves, you would be spot on. Mountains and caves are very significant in Hinduism, cropping up in the stories of many of the religion's deities and holy followers. Grand mandirs like this boast seven spires, or shikhars, to resemble peaks in the Himalayas, which are designed to encourage worshippers to direct their gaze towards the heavens.
Where is the mandir?
Mandirs can be anywhere. Hindus have small shrines in their homes that are a form of mandir. In this country the first mandirs were set up in halls and houses. Appropriate sites for mandirs are those described as tirtha - natural places associated with rivers, linked with great seers, or mentioned with reverence in the Puranas (the stories of Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma). Water is very important in Hinduism. Traditionally, mandirs are built with water to the left or in front. During construction, builders are asked to minimise the building's impact on nature. Where life has to be destroyed, there are mantras (prayer-like chants) to ask for forgiveness from the trees and creatures that will be harmed.
Inside the mandir
The focal point of a mandir is the inner sanctum, which is aligned with the highest of the spires. It is here that the shrine containing the image or murti of the presiding deity is housed.
Transition
Areas reserved for worship cannot be entered directly from the outside world. That said, many mandirs are tiny roadside shrines, in keeping with a religion that is meant to be an everyday part of human existence. Worshippers enter the Neasden mandir through a large entrance hall where they must leave their shoes. There is a grander, covered entrance called the roopchoki; this is where the guru may make appearances.
Segregation
In traditional Hindu society, everyone is deemed to have been born into a specific group, or varna. These became subdivided into castes defining social status. Live a good life and you would be reincarnated as a member of higher caste; do evil and you would drop down the social scale in your next life. At the bottom of the pile were people deemed to be outside the caste system - the untouchables.
In 1950, the caste system officially ended in India and for the first time many mandirs became open for all. This is true of the Neasden mandir. During worship in front of the mandir's murti, women tend to sit behind the men.
Furniture and movement
The inner sanctum and other prayer halls do not have chairs or pews. During prayers, the aarti will be offered to worshippers. This is a tray or lamp with five wicks. Worshippers hold their hands over the fire and touch their faces with its warmth. Another ritual involves the worshippers walking around the murti's shrine. This is called pradakshina.
Holy areas
It is not difficult to spot the holiest shrines in a mandir. The one in Neasden contains an image of Lord Swaminarayan, the first guru of this Hindu movement, Swami Gunati tanand, and an important saint, Swami Gopaland.
Mandirs often contain additional shrines to other Hindu gods. As one of the world's oldest religions, Hinduism has built up many layers and is not based upon the thoughts of a single person, or the writings of a single book. The Trimurti, the trinity that makes up Brahman (God) are Brahma (creator of the universe), Vishnu (the protector) and Shiva (the destroyer and re-creator). Other images derive from the Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, and two epic tales, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
Smells
During worship, precious incense oils are burnt, such as jasmine and sandalwood.
Sounds
Mantras begin with the sound "om", considered to be the first sound that God uttered, and contain all the secrets of the universe. Worshippers ring bells to alert the deity to their prayers.
Sights
Images often have multiple arms carrying symbolic items, and their hand gestures will suggest a variety of moods. A palm displayed outward to the worshipper, for example, is the gesture of blessing.
Burials and monuments
There are no memorials or places of burial in a mandir. Hindus believe that the body is a vehicle for the soul; they cremate their dead and scatter the ashes in sacred places, such as the Ganges, the holiest of rivers.
Food
Food is a crucial element of everyday worship, offered as part of the rituals. It is blessed by the monk and then returned to the worshipper. By eating the offering, the worshipper takes in the blessing.
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Some examples of home mandirs |
A temple [mandir] is the house of God and the place where the deity is both visible and accessible. The architecture of the temple symbolically represents the quest for the divine in the ways that contribute to diminishing the distance between the divine and the human. Thus the temple can function as a place of transit. One travels to the temple and moves toward the divine within it by proceeding in a clockwise direction. The interior spaces of a large temple complex are arranged to encourage movement be the devotee from outside toward the center through a series of enclosures that become increasingly sacred as one comes nearer to the central sanctuary. at the door to the sanctum sanctorum, a priest serves as intermediary between the devotee and the deity. The sanctum itself may be like a womb or a cave in which one finds mysterious vitality, a divine secret, at its very heart.
A temple should be on a site that has been carefully selected, its structure(s) should be designed and proportioned according to ancient ritual manuals, and it should be designed and proportioned according to ritual manuals, and it should be prepared for worship by installation of divine images and ritual purification. The temple itself can function like a large sacred geometric diagram that represents the entire cosmos, the individual human being, and the cosmic purusha of the Veda. People go to the temple for darshana, to be blessed by seeing and being seen by the deity through the ritually consecrated image forms. In a large and traditional temple, the main image resides in the womb-house (garbhagrha) of the temple. One reason the central chamber is called a womb-house is becuase this is where a spiritual aspirantis 'reborn' and repeatedly renewed.
