Hindu Temple

Well, to start off with I would have to state that hands down visting the Hindu temple in Aurora was my favorite trip that we have taken during this class. It felt like we actually went to India at times. There were people that were wearing both western and traditional Indian clothing. The fact that we had the opportunity to even eat Indian fod also furthered the illusion of being in India. It gave us an opportunity to understand a little portion of Indian culture and therefore understand Hinduism as well.

I found it interesting how the Hindus lavished their statues of their gods with real gold, jewels, and flowers. It seemed that they spare no expense when it came to their temple. They cared about giving the best of what they can give to their gods. I also found it interesting how almost everything in the temple was made back in India or was made by an Indian artist or architect. It gave the people that worshipped in the temple a connection back to India. For most it;s probably their homeland and for their children it would be their heirtage.

One more point of interest to me was a similarity I saw between the architecture of a Catholic church, Jewish temple, and a Hindu temple. They all keep the most important item in their worship space behind a curtain or a door. The catholics have the Eucharist, the Jews have the Torah, and he Hindus keep the statue most important to that particular temple behind gold doors. While the Hindus keep the statue behind the door for a different reason than Catholics and Jews keep their items behind curtains( Hindus have the door to wake up the god in the morning and to put the god to sleep at night) it still is an interesting architectural similarity.