Tag Archives: mandir

A fort and a temple in the heart of Ahmedabad

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THE TEEN DARWAZA (a magnificent three arched gateway built in 1415) was an entrance to the Bhadra Fort in Ahmedabad.  The Gateway faces the main part of the fort, but is separated from it by a large rectangular piazza lined with shops, eateries, an auditorium designed by BV Doshi, and market stalls.

 

The Bhadra Fort itself was constructed by the founder of Ahmedabad,  Ahmed Shah, in 1411. Thus, it is one of the oldest surviving edifices in the city. Only a few parts of this imposing structure are accessible to members of the public.

One substantial part  of the fort is occupied by a busy Hindu Temple,   Nagardevi Shri Bhadrakali Temple. This has been in existence for many years. However, since our last visit to Ahmedabad two years ago, the temple has spread into the piazza, occupying an area that used to be filled with traders’ stalls. The expansion consists of an area covered by a colourfully decorated canopy.

 

In addition, many of the street vendors who used crowded and enliven the piazza between the fort and the Teen Darwaza have been cleared out. According to one shopkeeper, with whom we spoke, it was the Temple authorities who ordered their removal.

 

The Bhadra Fort was built by followers of Islam. It has now been used to accommodate a Hindu temple.  Seeing this reminded me of the Charminar in Hyderabad.  This place, which is of great significance in the Islamic world, like the Bhadra Fort,  has been encroached by a Hindu temple. Although less solid in appearances than that in the Bhadra Fort, that attached to the Charminar is here to stay.

A Hindu temple that incorporates a banyan tree

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ON THE CAMPUS of Bangalore’s Chitrakala Parishath art college, there is a small Hindu mandir, the Ganapathi Temple. Dedicated in 1984 and built by Mandelia Parmarth Rosh, it contains an effigy of Ganesh and not much else.

What makes this small religious building both fascinating and charming is that its construction incorporates branches of a large, living banyan tree. The tree is growing through part of the temple.

A not quite religious experience in a temple in rural Rajasthan

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IN DECEMBER 2024, we hired a taxi to take us from Jaisalmer to Bikaner: both are cities in Rajastahan (India). As it was a journey that was going to take over five hours, we decided we needed a break en-route.

When we asked our rather sullen driver to find a place for us to stop for a light lunch, he drove us off the main road into a small town (an overgrown village) called Ramdevra. The modest place where we ate satisfactory vegetarian food was not one frequented by foreign visitors. People hanging around the establishment were clearly curious about us, but in a friendly way. After lunch, our driver encouraged us to walk to the Sree Baba Ramdev Temple, for which the town is famous. It was much further away from the restaurant than the “few minutes” our driver had told us. Near the temple, there were many stalls where lumps of different coloured crystalline dhoop (aromatic products made with herbs and resins, which when heated or burned release fragrant smoke) and incense sticks were for sale. It was very clear that his choosing to stop in Ramdevra was to visit the temple, which turned out to be a crowded place in a huge shed filled with Hindu shrines.

It was mass-production Hinduism. Impatient crowds of people, including us, were hurried along narrow passageways demarcated by metal railings. The maze of railings made the place look like a cattle market filled with animal holding pens.  The idea seemed to be to get the devotees to donate money at the several shrines in exchange for blessings that were performed by pandits as quickly as they could manage. Rather than feeling like a spiritual experience, it felt more like being a product on a fast-moving industrial conveyor belt. Our driver seemed pleased that he had visited the temple complex. We did not share his enthusiasm, and were pleased when we returned to the highway.

Tulsi trees and temples within the fort at Jaisalmer

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 THE WALLS OF THE fort in Jaisalmer (Rajasthan) contain a living city that has been in existence since the early 18th century,  but the fort itself was established in the 12th century. It is enjoyable to wander the narrow lanes that thread their way between houses, many of which are decorated with elaborate, Rajput style carving.

 

The only thing that can cause the visitor some concern is the regular passage of motorbikes and scooters along the thoroughfares which are severely limited in width. These vehicles, often driven by impatient people who sound the horn loudly and frequently, squeeze past one, narrowly avoiding injuring pedestrians. I suspect that these motorists find the tourists as irritating as the pedestrians regard them. That said, like Venice, whose main thoroughfares are crammed with visitors,  Jaisalmer, like Venice,  has byways that are almost deserted apart from the few residents who dwell in the houses lining them.

 

A tulsi tree

Today, we made a second visit to the fort and tried to avoid the busiest lanes as much as possible.  In so doing, we stumbled across two lovely old mandirs (Hindu temples). Both were constructed in the 15th century, long before the fort became a residential area for civilians. 

 

Both mandirs are still used for worship. In one of them, the Laxmi Narayan mandir, two pandits (priests) were having a heated argument  yelling at each other across the courtyard.  At this mandir, there was a tulsi (holy basil) tree, growing in a container, which has small alcoves in which lighted diyas (oil lamps) can be placed. I watched a man walking clockwise around the tulsi tree several times. When he had done this,  he plucked one of its leaves and touched it reverently  against his forehead.

 

The tulsi tree is of religious significance to devout Hindus. I read somewhere that when the Portuguese were occupying Goa and trying to encourage people to become Roman Catholic, tulsi trees were outlawed in that former colony.

 

The courtyard of the Laxmi Narayan was partly shaded by a peepal tree, whose leaves are heart shaped. Like the tulsi tree, the much larger peepal  tree is also of religious significance.

 

The other old temple, which is smaller than it’s neighbour (Laxmi Narayan), is called the Ratneshwar Mahadev. I did not notice any tulsi plants associated with it. However, a peepal was growing next to it.

 

Although both mandirs had visitors,  both locals and tourists, they were less crowded than the much-visited Jain temple with the fort. When we walked past it yesterday, it was literally swarming with tourists.

 

Apart from the spectacular array of finely decorated buildings that can be seen, what makes the fort of Jaisalmer well worth seeing is that it is still home people who live their everyday domestic lives there. Interspersed amongst the many things designed to appeal to tourists, one catches frequent glimpses of local people living their daily lives.

An old white painted temple in the heart of Bangalore and a reformer of Hinduism

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WHILE WALKING ALONG Bangalore’s Avenue Road, which runs from City (KR) Market to Palace Road, I spotted a mandir (Hindu Temple) down a side street. It was painted white, and its facade was surmounted by three tall niches, each containing a sculpture.

So many layers of paint had been applied over the years that the details on the sculptures had disappeared from view. At the rear of the mandir, I saw a tower like structure – part of the mandir’s roof. This was a popular landing place for pigeons. Within the building there were crudely carved stone pillars supporting the ceiling. These looked very old. Two rows of pillars lined a central ‘aisle’ leading to a shrine at the far end of the temple.

Above the entrance, there was a sign written in the script of the Kannada language, which I am unable to read. I showed a photograph of this sign to a bearer (waiter) in the dining room of the Bangalore Club. He deciphered it for me. The mandir is ‘Sri Belli Basavanna Devasthana”. This means ‘The Sri Basavanna Silver Temple’. Located in Basavannagudi Street in the Chickpet district, this is one of the oldest mandirs in Bangalore.

Born in Karnataka, Basavanna lived from 1131-1196 AD. A Shaivite (follower of Shiva) and social reformer, he was a founder of Lingayatism. His reforms included rejection of both social and gender discrimination. According to Wikipedia:
“Basava championed devotional worship that rejected temple worship and rituals led by Brahmins and replaced it with personalized direct worship of Shiva through practices such as individually worn icons and symbols like a small linga (sic). This approach brought Shiva’s presence to everyone and at all times, without gender, class or caste discrimination.”
Thus, we can see that Basava(nna) was a forward thinking person. He made religious worship personal rather than mediated by caste-conscious Brahmins.

Had my eye not been attracted by the flocks of pigeons flying around the small white mandir, it might have been many years before I became aware of Basavanna and his important ‘democratisation‘ of Hinduism.

Feeding the faithful at a Hindu temple in Kutch (Gujarat)

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THE DHRABUDI TRMPLE complex is near the sea about 5 miles east of the town of Mandvi (Kutch, Gujarat). It is located ated next a small Freshwater lake, where pilgrims can bathe. Our driver told us that baby boys are brought to be blessed at the temple when they reach their first birth anniversary. When we visited, we saw a group of people doing a puja in the open air. They were respecting the first death anniversary of one of their relatives.

While wandering around the temple compound, we saw a group of Rabari women seated in the shade, under a large banyan tree. The Rabari are nomadic cattle and camel herders, as well as shepherds. In India, they aremost frequently found in Gujarat, Punjab, and Rajasthan.

Worshippers come from far and wide to do pujas at the mandir. The temple offers free meals to pilgrims. These are served in a large dining hall. One wall of this is lined with numerous portraits of people who have died. We were told that diners pick up a thali and other eating utensils before lining up to be served food.

Pit containing glowing charcoal for cooking

The kitchen, which is next door to the dining hall is vast. It was spotlessly clean. I saw a few gas rings, but what really fascinated me was the other method by which food is heated up. I saw three or four pits sunk into the floor. Each one is shaped like a large spoon. Glowing charcoal is heaped in the bowl of the ‘spoon’, and can ve spread along the stem. Pots are placed above the charcoal. The arrangement reminded me of the Turkish ocakbaşı. I imagine that the cooking speed can be adjusted by varying the amounts of glowing charcoal beneath each of the enormous cooking pots.

We did not stay to join the pilgrims having lunch. Although the temple cooks kindly invited us, we had lunch awaiting us at my wife’s cousin’s home.

I always enjoy visiting place of worship. What made Dhrabudi special for me was being shown its wonderful kitchen.

A temple in Mandvi: architectural revival or survival?

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THE SWAMINARAYAN TEMPLE in Mandvi (Kutch, Gujarat) was constructed between 1991 and 1999 to replace a smaller Mandir on the site. Without going into the details of its very fine architectural and decorative features, this edifice was financed by local Kutchi followers of Swaminarayan. The Rajasthani Marble that forms the temple’s structure was hand carved by workmen, all of whom were followers of Swaminarayan. The stones that make up the building were carved in Rajasthan, transported to Mandvi where they were put together to make the edifice. This is similar to how the great temple in London’s Neasden was constructed.

Swaminarayan Mandir in Mandvi

The temple at Mandvi looks very similar to ancient Hindu temples I have seen elsewhere in India. As you look around it, you can see how the very old temples looked when they had just been built many centuries ago. Apart from the fact that Mandvi’s Swaminarayan Mandir looks recently built, a layman like myself, would find it difficult to age the building.

In 19th century England, many new churches were built in the gothic style. Like the newish temple at Mandvi, may of them faithfully reproduce the churches built in mediaeval times. The only thing that differentiates the 19th century Gothic Revival churches from their mediaeval predecessors is that they look too new to be as old as them.

In a book about Gothic Revival written by the art historian Kenneth Clark (1903-1983), he suggests that in England the use of gothic style in architecture never actually died out, and this suggested to me the Gothic Revival was really gothic survival. As far as I can gather, the same is the case for Hindu mandir architecture. If this is really the case, new temples such as Mandvi’s Swaminarayan Mandir is not the revival of the use of an ancient style of architecture, but an example of its survival. Put another way, the new temple at Mandvi is a reincarnation of its predecessor.