Indian Culture and Temples
At the heart of Indian culture lies spirituality, which is a part of everyday life for most. Temples symbolize this spirituality, offering devotees an ideal location for prayer, meditation, and to celebrate festivals. Temples attract not only the devotees, but also historians, and tourists in India and around the world for its spiritual significance, architectural beauty and historical intrigue. Temples are therefore considered as religious and cultural landmarks and as major tourist attractions. For example, when you hear the city Thirupathi, the Balaji Temple, when you say Chennai Mylapore, the image of the Kabaleeswarar temple and for Madurai Meenakshi Amman temple comes to mind.
Another interesting aspect of temples is the “prasadam”, food that is offered to God during the Pooja and distributed to people. Each temple has its unique form of prasadam, often associated with the deity worshipped there. For example, it’s Laddu in Thirupathi, for Ganesha it’s Modhak or Kozhakkatai and in most Vishnu temples Puliyidhare is offered. Prasadam is a very interesting topic that requires one whole article on its own.
In this series of articles, let us take a look at a few significant temples in India and in Switzerland.
Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple
The Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, located in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala. It is one of the most renowned and ancient temples in the country containing a rich history and multiple mentions in the Puranas, thus being declared as a UNESCO world heritage site.
It is one of the 108 Divya Desams (the sacred abodes of Lord Vishnu) according to the Sri Vaishnava tradition. This temple depicts Lord Vishnu as Ananthasayanam, where the Lord is seen to be peacefully resting on Adisesha, the thousand hooded serpent, with an enchanting smile on his face.
Every year, Thiruvananthapuram gears up to welcome the spectacular Navarathri procession from the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu. This tradition's roots can be traced back to 1839, during the reign of Maharaja of Travancore, Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma. The Navarathri Puja is one of the major rituals in Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple. The sword of Travancore kings preserved at Padmanabhapuram, which was part of erstwhile Travancore Kingdom, now in Kanyakumari district, is taken to Padmanabhaswamy temple at Thiruvananthapuram for Navratri festival every year. The sword will be taken as a procession Led by the sword bearer, Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram.
One of the aspects of the temple is the presence of six secret underground vaults those were discovered in recently. Vault B, in particular, gained international attention due to the immense wealth found in it, including gold, jewels, and ancient artifacts. It is considered one of the richest religious institutions in the world.
Refer to the temple website - https://spst.in/ for latest information.
Sri Vishnu Thurkkai Amman Temple
Hinduism is practiced by less than 1% of the population in Switzerland. 90% are born in foreign countries and have migrated to Switzerland. The Sri Sivasubramaniar Temple, located in Adliswil, is the most famous and oldest Hindu temple in Switzerland. Sri Vishnu Thurkkai Amman Temple in Dürnten was founded in 2010.
The temple is located in a scenic location, built in a warehouse. There are several deities, while Goddess Durga is the main deity. Other deities are housed in decorated altars which are built on the walls of the room.
This temple attracts a huge crowd on festival days such as Tamil New Year, Aiyappa pooja, and so on, however, on regular weekdays only a handful of people visit. It would be great to see this temple becoming popular on week days as well, which could help temple generate more income and hold more cultural events and rituals.
References
Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hindu_temples_in_Switzerland)
News from The Hindu and Times of India.
