my morning

oh man. my field trip was awesome. we drove out to the sri lakshmi temple in ashland, mass. the temple itself is very impressive. inside were several shrines to different gods. each shrine was recessed and kind of self-enclosed. i watched a ritual puja (i think a kind of service) for the god venkateswara. the statue was a gorgeous black stone four-armed statue with a yellow cloth around his waist and a gold chain draped around his neck. "venkateswara (as i read from the guide) is believed to be one of the many forms of incarnations of vishnu, who is in charge of preserving the universe... the left hand is in the katyavilambitha mudra. this gesture signifies that the ocean of samsara is only knee deep and can easily be crossed over with faith in god."

so i stood around and watched a fat shirtless priest and his apprentice perform rituals for the statue. the priest would pour cup after cup of milk onto the statue, giving it a gorgeous ghostly appearance, before washing it off with water. this was repeated with cup after cup of cream, and then a thick paste which he spread over venkateswara's chest, and then honey, and then a white dust/grain which made the statue look amazing, and then a dusty orange paste. at first i thought "boy this is out there" but for some reason it felt kind of right.

i also met a professor from BU medical school who chatted with me about sanskrit and atman, paramatman, and mahatma. he was surprised to find that i'm already a pro at that stuff. later on when i was watching a puja for ganesa, i found myself in line for devotion and a priest dabbed a little white paste onto my forehead. the temple also has a cafeteria (for some reason most temples do) that serves great lemon rice and yogurt rice.

naptime.

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here are some photos of the outside of the temple - they don't allow you to take photos inside.