Tag: Temple

Harwan is a small village located 3 km beyond the Shalimar Garden in Srinagar District of Jammu and Kashmir. The village was identified by Sir Aurel Stein with Shadara Hadvana (grove of six saints) a locality mentioned in Rishi Kalhana’s Rajatarangini. It is a historic place that was sacked and destroyed by Sikandar Butshikan during the 14th century AD, and many remains of Kashmir’s Hindu as well as Buddhist past have been found during the excavations.

The relics of this unique work of art and history, the Harwan Buddhist temple is aeons old, and its origin goes as far as 300 AD. Its ruins are located in Harwan, a village situated in the north-western Kashmir. These ruins are situated towards the northwest of Kashmir and are accessible from the eastern side of Shalimar Mughal Garden.

The temple dates back to the Kushan era and civilisation. It was discovered during an excavation as part of an archaeological expedition conducted by the Archaeological Department of India approximately between 1919 and 1929 AD. The architecture of this ancient structure depicts the lifestyle, attire and habitat of Kashmir’s Hindus of that era. There are beautiful image carvings on the tiles within the temple.

Image : A female musician wearing trousers; she plays on a drum, which is apparently slung over her left shoulder. Floral motifs on either side. A dancer wearing large ear-rings and dressed in loose robe and trousers, with a long scarf held in both hands, which she waves over her head. One can notice the similarity of classical Indian dance depicted in the dancer’s body posture.

Ijo Temple

Candi Ijo Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The temple was built between 10th to 11th century CE during the Mataram Kingdom period.

The temple compound consists of several terraces. On the western part some temple ruins were discovered, most of them are being excavated. It was estimated that more than 10 Perwara or lesser temples ruins are still buried in this terraces.

The main temple compound located on the uppermost terrace, consists of a large main temple facing west and three perwara temples on front of it facing east. The three perwara temples was meant to honor Trimurti, the three highest gods in Hinduism: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. All of these three temples having cella or room and there are windows perforated in the rhombus shape. The roof is arranged in three stages adorned with rows of ratnas.

The main temple has square ground plan. The entrance into the garbhagriha (main room) is located on west side, flanked with two false window, or niches adorned with kala-makara decoration. On the north, east, and southern walls there are three niches on each side also adorned in kala-makara style. The center niche are slightly higher than other two flanking niches. These niches are now empty, probably these niches once contains Hindu murti (statues).

A flight of stairs flanked with two makaras were designed to reach the main door that is 1.2 meters above the ground. On top of the door there are carving of Kala’s head connected to makaras body on each side of the gate. These kala-makara pattern is commonly found in temples of ancient Java. Inside the makara’s mouth there are small parrots carved.

Inside the main chamber there is a large linga and yoni adorned with naga serpent. The union of phallic linga and yoni symbolize the cosmic sacred union between Shiva and Parvati as his shakti. There are three niches on each sides of inner wall in the room, each niches flanked with a pair of devata, Hindu lesser gods and goddesses flying toward the niches.

The roof of main temple is arranged in three ascending terraces decreased in size to the top forming stepped pyramid. On each sides there are 3 ratnas on each step, a larger ratna crowning the roof. On the margin between temple body and the roof adorned with floral patterns and gana (dwarf). On the edge of the roof there are antefixes with floral frames, inside the antefix there are images of Hindu gods bust with hand position holding flowers

Why were temples built? What was the purpose behind them?

The very nature of human perception is such that, right now, whatever a human being is involved with, that will be the only truth for him in his experience. Right now, most people are involved with the five sense organs and that seems to be the only truth, nothing else. Sense organs can only perceive that which is physical and because your perception is limited to the five sense organs, everything that you know as life is only the physicality – your body, your mind, your emotion and your life energies are all physical. If you see the physical existence as a fabric, then we can say you are living on the fabric of the physical. You are walking on this cloth and what you are walking on is all that is real. When you look up, there seems to be a vast emptiness above, but even there you only recognize the physical. You look at the stars or the sun or the moon – this is all physical. You don’t perceive that what is not physical, isn’t it? A temple is a hole through which you enter into a space “which is not.”

What you call a temple is like putting a hole in the fabric, creating a space where the physical becomes thin and something beyond becomes visible to you. This science of making the physical less manifest is the science of consecration, so that dimension beyond the physical becomes apparent or visible to you if you are willing. To take the analogy further, it is like the temple is a hole in the fabric of the physical, where you could fall through easily and go beyond.

Today temples may be built just like shopping complexes with concrete and steel, probably for the same purpose, because everything has become commerce. When I talk about temples, I am talking about the way ancient temples were created. In this country, in ancient times, temples were built only for Shiva, nobody else. It was only later that the other temples came up because people started focusing on immediate wellbeing. Using this science, they started creating various other forms, which they could use to benefit themselves in so many different ways in terms of health, wealth, and well being. They created different types of energies and different kinds of deities. If you want money, you create one kind of form or if you are full of fear, you create another kind of form, which will assist with that. These temples came up in the last 1100 or 1200 years, but before that, there were no other temples in the country except Shiva temples.
The word ‘Shiva’ literally means ‘that which is not.’ So the temple was built for ‘that which is not.’ ‘That which is’ is physical manifestation; ‘that which is not’ is that which is beyond the physical. So a temple is a hole through which you enter into a space “which is not.”

The Konark sun Temple of Orissa is Located on the shoreline,little over 3 km from the sea, the temple takes the form of the chariot of Surya (Arka)., the Sun God, and is heavily decorated with stone carving. The Temple is located in natural surroundings, abounding with casuarina plantations and other types of trees such as mahogany, rosewood, eel which grow on sandy soil. The area of the Surya Mandir devoid of people, covered with dense forest, filled with sand, overrun by wild animals and became the abode of pirates. It is said that even the locals feared to go to Konark in broad daylight.

The Sun Temple of Orissa is devoted Hindu Lord Surya. The Sun Temple, built in the thirteenth century, was conceived as a gigantic chariot of the Sun God, with twelve pairs of exquisitely ornamented wheels pulled by seven horses.

This fantastic effort in human perseverance took 1200 workers about 12 years to complete and that the ’’Dadhinauti’’ (Peak) of the main temple had to be installed by the 12 year old son Dharmapada Moharana of the Chief Architect Bishu Moharana. The said peak being a 52 ton magnet. This magnet was the reason the entire edifice endured the harsh conditions (being on the sea front) for centuries without being affected. The main pratima (idol) was believed to be floating in the air because of the unique arrangements of the main magnets and other series of magnets. The placement of the temple had been aligned in a way that the first rays of the Sun falling on the coast would pass thru the Nata Mandir and would reflect from the diamond placed at the center of this idol in the Main Sanctum. This phenomena would last for a couple of minutes during the early morning. These magnets were later removed by the Britishers for acquiring the magnetic stone

The Sun Temple of Orissa Uniqueness of the temple lies in the fact that between every two stone pieces there lies an iron plate. The temples higher floors have been reinforced using massive iron beams in the structure.

The Sun worship in the Konark temple ended upon the removal of the sacred image from the temple. This resulted in the end of pilgrimages to Konark. The port at Konark was also closed, due to pirate attacks.The people belive Sun worship as it was for commercial activities, but after the cessation of these activities, Konark became deserted and was left to be enveloped by a dense forest over the years.

-Temples Of India

Archaeologists have unearthed a temple, believed to be more than 5000 years old at the famous El Paraiso site, located near Lima, the capital city of Peru.

On the western edge of the Paraiso Complex is a temple which is described as :

“A small stone structure which features walls coated in yellow clay and traces of red paint, is thought to be around 5,000 years old and has already been dubbed the Temple of Fire. It was discovered within the western wing of the main El Paraiso pyramid. The hearth located in the newly discovered structure was used to burn ceremonial offerings.”

Marco Guillen, who led the team of researchers interpreted his findings and said, “The smoke allowed the priests to connect with the gods.This concept is very much similar to the Vedic rituals done in Havan Kund (Yajna, where people light up fire in a square shaped cube structure built with bricks and make offerings while chantings mantras, mostly to please a god/goddess and achieve a certain objective).This is also called as Agnihotra or Homa.

The Paraiso Fire Temple is a larger version of a ‘Havan Kund‘, with seating space for the pundits (priests) chanting mantras.

Archeologists say the site is comparable in age to Caral, the oldest pre-Columbian site in the Americas that was inhabited between 2,600 – 2,100 BC. Caral is located some 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the north and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.The entrance, measuring some 48 centimeters (19-inches) wide, leads to a chamber measuring eight by six meters (26 by 20 feet) where shellfish, grains, flowers and fruit were burned as offerings.The temple has four levels, with each one older than the other.

Vedic sacred fire ritual ‘havan‘ serves as a link between man’s consciousness and the cosmic consciousness.Havan fire converts the physical components and all offerings made to the fire, into their ‘psychic’ components serving as homage to the deities presiding over the ‘havan‘.The ‘offerings’ made into the fire is known as ‘homa‘ (होम) in Sanskrit.Probably from the Sanskrit ‘homa‘ that the English word ‘homage‘ is derived – though English etymological dictionaries trace the source to the word ‘homme‘ meaning ‘man‘.

Agni (Fire) is the first word in Rig Veda (which is the oldest text available).Almost all religions use light/fire to worship higher force or God. It can be in the form of agnihotra, lamps or candles.Burning incense sticks is also practiced in many religions and for meditations purposes.

In Sanskrit, Peru (पेरु) means ‘Golden Mountain’ and ‘Paru‘ (परु) means ‘Paradise‘.Paraiso could have its roots in sanskrit, just like the ancient language of the Americas, Quechua, which has similarities to sanskrit.Just like the fire ritual in native american weddings and QoriKancha temple, which has ‘Kancha‘ (कञ्च) word, which clearly means Gold in sanskrit and in Quechua language, QoriKancha (Korikancha) means ‘Courtyard of Gold‘.