The Senses in Worship

We have walked into the temple, to its womb and its mountain. We have learned the loving care of puja. Now let us simply stand inside and ask: what is it like to be here? What does worship feel like?

And here is something that surprises many people. Worship in this tradition is not silent and still. It is not only a quiet of the mind. It is alive. It fills the whole body. Every sense you have is given to the divine. Let us go through them, one by one.^[1]

First, the eyes. We have already met this gift: darshan, the seeing of and being seen by the deity. The eyes are given the form of the carved image, rich with colour and ornament, and the small flames of lamps waved in slow circles before it, so the dark sanctum glows. arati

Then the ears. The temple rings with sound. Deep bells, and the long low note of the conch-horn, and drums, and the chant of sacred words rising and falling. The sound is not a background to worship. It is worship. It wakes the heart and tells you that you have come into a holy place.

Then the nose. The air is thick and sweet with incense, curling up in pale threads. There are heaps of fresh flowers, garlands of them, their scent everywhere. Smell, which reaches so deep into memory, ties the divine to something you can almost taste on the air.

Then the tongue. Here returns a gift we have met before: prasada, the blessed food. A sweet, a little fruit, a few grains, given back from the deity and placed in your open hands. You taste the divine kindness. Worship becomes, quite literally, something you carry home inside you.

And then touch. Bare feet on cool stone worn smooth by ages of other feet. A dab of red on the brow, or a smear of soft grey ash. The brush of a garland. The whole body takes part. Nothing of you is left outside. You worship with all that you are.

Now lift your eyes from the worship to the place around it, for the temple is far more than a shrine. In this age it is the beating heart of the whole town. It is the largest and grandest building anyone has ever seen. Around it gather the artisans, the musicians, the dancers, the teachers, the keepers of records.^[2]

Kings and merchants give the temple gifts of land and gold. In turn it feeds and employs the town, and even lends and stores like a treasury. Its walls are carved with the deeds of the people, so that to read a temple wall is to read the town's own life. The temple is faith and work and gathering, all in one place.^[2]

And the deity does not stay shut away. Each morning it is woken like a king. And at the great festivals, a special image, often a fine bronze, is lifted up and carried out through the streets in procession. Then the whole town, rich and poor alike, those who may not enter the inner shrine and those who may, can stand in the road and take darshan as the lord goes by. utsava-murti^[1]

So this is how the temple age gathers up the whole long story. The vast One of the sages, drawn near in an image, served with loving puja, housed in a cosmos of stone, met with every sense, and carried out into the streets to bless an entire people. Faith here is not far away. It is as close as the food on your tongue and the bell in your ears.