India is the land of gods. They have thousands of gods ranged in layers, tumbling down from Krishna who is seen by many as the overarching God of Gods. But then there are those who would say that Vishnu has this role…. arguments abound, rules, regulations, rites, ceremonies, days, moons, years…. It is a monumental task to understand what is actually going on. And if not following Krishna, there are different gods for each need or desire and each god or goddess has different weapons, different skills and a unique form of transport.
The different altars, temples, colours, markings and displays that define each form of worship are manifold and, in these images here you can see just a tiny part of life in a Hindu world.
There are images from stonemasons yards where they carve, shop windows where they sell, and home made temples where personal gods are worshipped.
Karma plays it’s merry way through all of this, as well. And unravelling karma is a life’s work. Many life’s work, in fact.
For each individual, worship is paramount; how they believe and aspire is so very different from our western religious practice. And above all of this is reincarnation: it was taken out of the bible in Constantinople’s Ecumenical Council of 527AD. But the Hindus, in all their forms know that they have as many goes at their lives as it takes a bird flying over a mountain with a silk scarf in its mouth to wear down the mountain. So literally millions of lives. And no pressure in each one to get it right.
I love all of it; every god, temple, saint and bedroom altar, each morsel of food put aside on the plate for god, each outfit they are dressed in depending on the time of day.
