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The form and function of temples is thus very variable, though they are often considered by believers to be in some sense the "house" of one or more deities. Typically offerings of some sort are made to the deity, and other rituals enacted, and a special group of clergy maintain, and operate the temple. The degree to which the whole population of believers can access the building varies significantly; often parts or even the whole main building can only be accessed by the clergy (Michell 1990: 28-31). Temples typically have a main building and a larger precinct, which may contain many other buildings, or may be a dome shaped structure, much like an igloo.
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The word comes from Ancient Rome, where a temple constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template" a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out on the ground by the augur (Prasanna Kumar 1996: 32). Templa also became associated with the dwelling places of a god or gods. Despite the specific set of meanings associated with the word, it has now become widely used to describe a house of worship for any number of religions and is even used for time periods prior to the Romans. Hindu temples, however, are known by many different names, varying on region and language, including Aiayam, Mandir, Mandira, Gudi, Kavu, Koli, Kovil Déul, Raul, Devasthana, Degul, Deva Mandiraya and Devalaya.( Monica 2001: 156)
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A Hindu temple is a symbolic house, the seat and dwelling of Hindu gods. It is a structure designed to bring human beings and gods together according to Hindu faith. Inside its Garbhagriha innermost sanctum, a Hindu temple contains a Murti or Hindu god's image. Hindu temples are large and magnificent with a rich history. There is evidence of use of sacred ground as far back as the Bronze Age and later during the Indus Valley Civilization. Outside of the Indian subcontinent.
(India, Bangladesh and Nepal), Hindu temples have been built in various countries around the world. Either following the historic diffusion of Hinduism across Asia (e.g. ancient stone temples of Cambodia and Indonesia), or following the migration of the Indian Hindus' Diaspora; to Western Europe (esp. Great Britain), North America (the United States and Canada), as well as Australia, Malaysia and Singapore, Mauritius and South Africa. (Prasanna Kumar 1996: 45).
Hindu worship is primarily an individual act rather than a communal one, as it involves making personal offerings to the deity. Worshippers repeat the names of their favorite gods and goddesses, and repeat mantras. Water, fruit, flowers and incense are offered to god. Unlike other organized religions, in Hinduism, it is not mandatory for a person to visit a temple. Since all Hindu home usually has a small shrine or ‘puja room’ for daily prayers, Hindus generally go to temples only on auspicious occasions or during religious festivals. Hindu temples also do not play a crucial role in marriages and funerals, but it is often the meeting place for religious discourses as well as ‘bhajans’ and ‘kirtans’ (devotional songs and chants). (Vinayak Bharne; Krupali Krusche 2014: 65)
Hindu worship, or puja, involves images (murtis), prayers (mantras) and diagrams of the universe (yantras).Central to Hindu worship is the image, or icon, which can be worshipped either at home or in the temple. (Ibid. 68)
The majority of Hindu homes have a shrine where offerings are made and prayers are said. A shrine can be anything: a room, a small altar or simply pictures or statues of the deity. Family members often worship together. Rituals should strictly speaking be performed three times a day. Some Hindus, but not all, worship wearing the sacred thread (over the left shoulder and hanging to the right hip). This is cotton for the Brahmin (priest), hemp for the Kshatriya (ruler) and wool for the vaishya (merchants).
Temple
worship - At a Hindu temple, different parts of the building have a different
spiritual or symbolic meaning.
- The central shrine is the heart of the worshipper
- The tower represents the flight of the spirit to heaven
- A priest may read, or more usually recite, the Vedas to the assembled worshippers, but any "twice-born" Hindu can perform the reading of prayers and mantras Religious rites
- Hindu religious rites are classified into three categories:
- Nitya
- Nitya rituals are performed daily and consist in offerings made at the home shrine or performing puja to the family deities.
- Naimittika
- Naimittika rituals are important but only occur at certain times during the year, such as celebrations of the festivals, thanksgiving and so on.
- Kamya
- Kamya are rituals which are "optional" but highly desirable. Pilgrimage is one such.
(Ajay 2000: 142-145)
Worship and pilgrimage - Pilgrimage is an important aspect of Hinduism. It's an undertaking to see and be seen by the deity. Popular pilgrimage places are rivers, but temples, mountains, and other sacred sites in India are also destinations for pilgrimages, as sites where the gods may have appeared or become manifest in the world.
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The architecture of Hindu temples evolved over a period of more than 2,000 years and there is a great variety in this architecture. Hindu temples are of different shapes and sizes rectangular, octagonal, and semi-circular with different types of domes and gates. Temples in southern India have a different style than those in northern India. Although the architecture of Hindu temples is varied, they mainly have many things in common. The temples of ancient India have also received substantial treatment with regard to their cosmic meaning, but the interpretation of sacred architecture in India has been influenced by the significant body of ritual and architectural texts, which provide detailed rules and conventions for all aspects of planning and construction and ritual practice (Monica 2001: 56). The use of these texts has not only supplemented understanding of the symbolism of temple architecture, but encouraged research into the meaning of plans, proportions, and architecture as science. The question of the interrelationship between cosmos and architecture has also been investigated in ancient Greece, where the use of proportion and geometry is considered vital to this topic. The question of whether similar constraints existed in other cultures, such as the example of Mesopotamia, also arises, with the possibility that they were perhaps articulated in the form of metrological texts.
The 6 Parts of a Hindu Temple
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1. The Dome and Steeple: The steeple of the dome is called ‘shikhara’ (summit) that represents the mythological ‘Meru’ or the highest mountain peak. The shape of the dome varies from region to region and the steeple is often in the form of the trident of Shiva.
2. The Inner Chamber: The inner chamber of the temple called ‘garbhagriha’ or ‘wombchamber’ is where the image or idol of the deity (‘murti’) is placed. In most temples, the visitors cannot enter the garbhagriha, and only the temple priests are allowed inside.
3. The Temple Hall: Most large temples have a hall meant for the audience to sit. This is also called the ‘nata-mandira’ (hall for temple-dancing) where, in days of yore, women dancers or ‘devadasis’ used to perform dance rituals. Devotees use the hall to sit, meditate, pray, chant or watch the priests perform the rituals. The hall is usually decorated with paintings of gods and goddesses.
4. The Front Porch: This area of the temples usually has a big metallic bell that hangs from the ceiling. Devotees entering and leaving the porch ring this bell to declare their arrival and departure.
5. The Reservoir: If the temple is not in the vicinity of a natural water body, a reservoir of fresh water is built on the temple premises. The water is used for rituals as well as to keep the temple floor clean or even for a ritual bath before entering the holy abode.
6. The Walkway: Most temples have a walkway around the walls of the inner chamber for circum-ambulation by devotees around the deity as a mark of respect to the temples god or goddess.
(Prasanna Kumar 1996: 80).
Hindu temple is a symbolic house, seat and body of god. It is a structure designed to bring human beings and gods together, using symbolism to express the ideas and beliefs of Hinduism. The symbolism and structure of a Hindu temple are rooted in Vedic traditions, deploying circles and squares. It also represents recursion and equivalence of the macrocosm and the microcosm by astronomical numbers, and by "specific alignments related to the geography of the place and the presumed linkages of the deity and the patron". A temple incorporates all elements of Hindu cosmos—presenting the good, the evil and the human, as well as the elements of Hindu sense of cyclic time and the essence of life—symbolically presenting dharma, kama, artha, moksa, and karma.
The spiritual principles symbolically represented in Hindu temples are given in the ancient Sanskrit texts of India (for example, Vedas and Upanishads), while their structural rules are described in various ancient Sanskrit treatises on architecture (Brhat Samhita, Vastu Sastras). The layout, the motifs, the plan and the building process recite ancient rituals, geometric symbolisms, and reflect beliefs and values innate within various schools of Hinduism. A Hindu temple is a spiritual destination for many Hindus, as well as landmarks around which ancient arts, community celebrations and economy have flourished.
Hindu temples come in many styles, are situated in diverse locations, deploy different construction methods and are adapted to different deities and regional beliefs, yet almost all of them share certain core ideas, symbolism and themes. They are found in South Asia particularly India and Nepal, in southeast Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Vietnam, and islands of Indonesia and Malaysia, and countries such as Canada, the Caribbean, Fiji, France, Guyana, Kenya, Mauritius, the Netherlands, South Africa, Suriname, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, the United Kingdom, the United States, and countries with a significant Hindu community. The current state and outer appearance of Hindu temples reflect arts, materials and designs as they evolved over two millennia; they also reflect the effect of conflicts between Hinduism and Islamsince the 12th century. The Swaminarayanan Akshardham in Robbinsville, New Jersey, United States, between the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas, was inaugurated in 2014 as one of the world's largest Hindu temples.
Significance and meaning of a Hindu temple
A
Hindu temple reflects a synthesis of arts, the ideals of dharma,
beliefs, values, and the way of life cherished under Hinduism. It is a link
between man, deities, and the Universal Purusa in a sacred space. It
represents the triple-knowledge (trayi-vidya)
of the Vedic vision by mapping the relationships between the cosmos (brahmanda)
and the cell (pinda) by a unique plan that is based on astronomical numbers.
Subhash Kak sees the temple form and its iconography to be a natural expansion
of Vedic ideology related to recursion, change and equivalence. (Vinayak
Bharne; Krupali Krusche 2014: 36)
The
9x9 (81) grid ‘’Parama Sayika’’ layout plan (above) found in large ceremonial
Hindu Temples. It is one of many grids used to build Hindu temples. In this
structure of symmetry, each concentric layer has significance. The outermost
layers, Paisachika padas, signify aspects of Asuras and evil; while inner
Devika padas signify aspects of Devas and good. In between the good and evil is
the concentric layer of Manusha padas signifying human life; All these layers
surround Brahma padas, which signifies creative energy and the site for
temple’s primary idol for darsana. Finally at the very center of Brahma padas
is Grabhgriya (Purusa Space), signifying Universal Principle present in
everything and everyone. In ancient Indian texts, a temple is a place for Tirtha – pilgrimage. It is a sacred site whose ambience and design attempts to symbolically condense the ideal tenets of Hindu way of life. All the cosmic elements that create and sustain life are present in a Hindu temple – from fire to water, from images of nature to deities, from the feminine to the masculine, from the fleeting sounds and incense smells to the eternal nothingness yet universality at the core of the temple.
Susan Lewandowski states that the underlying principle in a Hindu temple is built around the belief that all things are one, everything is connected. The pilgrim is welcomed through 64-grid or 81-grid mathematically structured spaces, a network of art, pillars with carvings and statues that display and celebrate the four important and necessary principles of human life – the pursuit of artha (prosperity, wealth), the pursuit of kama (pleasure, sex), the pursuit of dharma (virtues, ethical life) and the pursuit of moksha (release, self-knowledge). At the center of the temple, typically below and sometimes above or next to the deity, is mere hollow space with no decoration, symbolically representing Purusa, the Supreme Principle, the sacred Universal, one without form, which is present everywhere, connects everything, and is the essence of everyone (Ajay 2000: 180). A Hindu temple is meant to encourage reflection, facilitate purification of one’s mind, and trigger the process of inner realization within the devotee. The specific process is left to the devotee’s school of belief. The primary deity of different Hindu temples varies to reflect this spiritual spectrum.
In Hindu tradition, there is no dividing line between the secular and the sacred. In the same spirit, Hindu temples are not just sacred spaces, they are also secular spaces. Their meaning and purpose have extended beyond spiritual life to social rituals and daily life, offering thus a social meaning. Some temples have served as a venue to mark festivals, to celebrate arts through dance and music, to get married or commemorate marriages, commemorate the birth of a child, other significant life events, or mark the death of a loved one. In political and economic life, Hindu temples have served as a venue for the succession within dynasties and landmarks around which economic activity thrived.
K. M. G. Arjuan Manage
BA(Hon.s) in Archaeology, Univercity of Peradeniya.
Reference
- Prasanna Kumar Acharya (1996). Hindu Architecture in India and Abroad. Laurier. ISBN 978-81-215-0732-5.
- Vinayak Bharne; Krupali Krusche (2014), Rediscovering the Hindu Temple: The Sacred Architecture and Urbanism of India, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, ISBN 978-1-4438-6734-4
- Adam Hardy (2007). The Temple Architecture of India. Wiley. ISBN 978-0470028278.
- Monica Juneja (2001). Architecture in Medieval India: Forms, Contexts, Histories. Orient Blackswan. ISBN 978-8178242286.
- Michell, George (1990), The Penguin Guide to the Monuments of India, Volume 1: Buddhist, Jain, Hindu, 1990, Penguin Books, ISBN 0140081445
- Ajay J. Sinha (2000). Imagining Architects: Creativity in the Religious Monuments of India. University of Delaware Press. ISBN 978-0-87413-684-5.
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