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Archive for August, 2007
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City temple procession
This was taken at the Varadaraja Temple across from the yagya house in Kanchipuram. The Vishnu murti can been seen under the umbrella (dressed in red) and Lakshmi (also in red) is off to the right being carried separately. -
Country Shiva temple
One evening we drove abot an hour out of Kanchipuram into the area of rice paddys to watch Shiva Abishekam at the temple where we sponsor the annual Shivaratri celbration. It is a beautiful small temple and really really in the middle of nowhere. Very peaceful. The utsava (festival) murtis were brought out to ride [...] -
The whole gang
Just after the final abishekam ready for the final pujas. (that’s me in the orange dhoti) -
Abishekam
During a yagya there are a series water pots (Kalasha) into which the form of divinity being honored is invoked at the beginning of the pujas each day. So we had 10 pots which were decorated with fresh flower malas every day. On the last day the priests took the water pots and poured the [...] -
The team
The group of 12 pundits for the June Vedic Recitations were extraordinarily qualified, each having started their training around the age of 10 and not finishing until well into their 20′s. One might expect with a group of “experts” there might be an occasional fareup of conflicting expertise or even just the occasional bad mood. [...] -
Coconut
At the end of every yagya there is a final offering called Poornadhuti that has special mantras and one final offering that can be quite elaborate (sometimes including a silk sari). In our Kanchipuram yagyas we used a fresh coconut each day of the 12 day series. It is traditionally offered using the special carved [...] -
Every 40 years…
In the Varadaraja Temple across from our Kanchipuram house, there is a special area (seen above) where the deity is considered to be so powerful that it has to be kept under water in the temple seen on the left. The murti is taken out once every 40 years! And even then only for a [...] -
Red Ganesha
This photo was taken in Varanasi and I am posting it here because the Ganesha in the background is quite large and completely red! Until now I had never seen a Ganesha that was red and I don’t recall ever seeing a Ganesha that was standing up! -
Raw materials
This is where it all starts. Just years of manual labor with a hammer and chisel and you have a temple. And just for the record, our guide was absolutely charming and refused anything more than a few rupees for tea after giving us a tour for well over an hour. Then it was back [...] -
The Wheel
I am not sure where this wheel is going to go in the temple, but it is beautifully carved from a single piece of stone. The center hole is so perfectly round that it could be used as a real wheel! It is about 4 1/2 feet tall. If you look closely you can see [...]