Inroduction to Indian temples 101

 When you go in to a church, however old, however early it may be, you would recognize the frescoes, statues, figures on glass windows. Since you have been or seen lots of churches, cathedrals, chapels, you have knowledge of the subject matter. Mother and child, Virgin Mary, Joseph, Christ and his miracles, etc., etc. However ‘naïve’, however simple  the paintings are it is quite easy to decode the stories on the walls, since we kind of know what they are. It is quite similar in Islam as well, if you know  a bit about the religion you admire the tiles, the carpets,  you would know where the imam sits, or goes up for the call of prayers.  You would not expect to find pictures or statues there.

This is not the case when you go in to temples in India. If the information about Indian religions start and finish with the pictures on Indian restaurant walls, the smell of incense and Lady Di sitting on a bench at Taj Mahal; one temple resembles another and it does not go beyond walking bare foot in stone floors covered with tired orange flowers and tablecloth offerings. If you think you will rather read Wikipedia to learn about them, please do so, If not keep on reading. I am going to tell you about the basics of temple images.
Years and years ago a very rich man who had a lot of money to spend on art and faith, gave a lot of money to an artisan and asked him to carve him a statue of god so he would be as immortal as the statue itself. He was given a big black stone.  The stone was dark black, tall and round, like an upside down jam jar. It was a crude, unpolished boulder. The artisan thought about how he would do this, how he can capture the idea of god. He dreamed of the feathers of peacocks, the necessity of crows, the lines of the zebra, the mushiness of mango, the hotness of red chillies, the hanging branches of the banyan trees, the white kohl of tigers’ eye.   The coolness of the monsoons, the muddy waters of the rivers ached his soul. The greatness of creation, the need to witness this creation to admire it, the beauty of ‘form’ overwhelmed and humbled him.  ‘when’ he thought , ‘god created this boulder like this, he must have given the concept of life, death, creation and recreation, the on-going circle of life, the power and the beauty of simple but complex things on earth and heavens to this simple rock’. God is the container of all forms, therefore he is formless, but a form is needed to access this idea.  . He is capable of anything and everything. He is the container of infinity. This boulder before his very eyes was the ultimate projection of god and faith. So he left it as it is.  This form is the most basic, the simplest idea of god. It has everything in it. God exists because we believe.  This boulder  is the amalgamation of god the creator, protector and the destroyer .This is called Linga.

Linga is the abstract form of Shiva. Shiva is the pure one, he is purified of all forms, he cannot be contained in space or time, and he does not need a form either. Since it is formless, it is easy to personalise it. He is erect, phallic and alert but very calm and serene, like the boulder. When you believe in Shiva, you are impressed  by the power of god and creation and  you realise how small and unimportant things in everyday  life . Then you can leave cakes and doughnuts behind, foot massages and expensive perfumes, new saris, houses with four bedrooms, fish and chips on Sunday evenings, x factor conversations during the week, endless private lessons, the need to have birthday parties and new flip flops, chewing beetle leaves, and nibbling on roasted chick peas on street corners, leave all these worldly things aside and be content with the serenity that comes slowly.

 Linga sits comfortably in the middle of the temples.  There may be lots of other forms of Shiva on the walls. This linga is very proud of its modest form. He does not expect anything if you are not aware of its importance. Poeple   circumnavigate and decorate the form-the idea of god with ripe mango coloured flower petals, the shiniest, most colourful strips of scarves. They wash it with water, sometimes with milk. They take their shoes off; put their foreheads on the ground facing him.  Shiva in human form and his wife on the other altars wait for their turn.  I will tell the stories of human forms of Shiva later.