Visiting A Hindu Temple

This week in our World Religions class we had a real treat.  We visited the Sri Venkateswara Hindu Temple here in Cary, NC.  While there are quite a number of temples in our area, this one is the only one I know of that was built in accordance with an ancient Hindu tradition that requires exact placement of different elements, etc. (but don't worry--they also had to meet the US building code regulations, our guide assured us).

We loved visiting the temple, in part because it was so different than the churches that most of us are accustomed to seeing.  Its several towers were covered with elaborately molded concrete displaying vines, gods, monster guards, and other curly cues.

We had to leave our shoes outside the fence before entering the complex.  Hindu temples always open to the East, according to our guide, which is thought to be the place of the gods, so that was where this entrance was.  However, you are supposed to go around the temple outside from East to South to West to North, and to honor at the smaller shrines outside, before entering the main building.

Once inside, you are again expected to show your respect to the minor deities and creatures--in this case, two wives and the giant bird the god rides--before coming to worship at the main alter, which in this case is Venkateswara, which is one of the avatars of Visnu, the god of protection.  There is no set time for worship and no sermon or service; rather, people just come at their own time and honor the god/s in their own way.  They believe that the god actually inhabits the statues that they build, so it is a very personal connection between the worshiper and the deity.

It's a great thing to see, and a great concept of religion to consider.  If there is a Hindu temple around you, I recommend that you check it out.

Studying Hinduism Through Art

In our World Religions class this week, we had as a guest speaker the Interfaith minister Rev. Donna Belt, who specializes in exploring spirituality through art.  She did an exploratory art project with the students that helped them connect parts of Hinduism to their own lives.

We started on the floor, with Donna talking about her own attraction to and study of Hinduism, then heard a version of the famous Hindu story of Ganesha, the elephant-headed god who is the remover of obstacles:

One of the lessons of Ganesh is to focus on possibilities and creative ways to overcome obstacles, rather than focusing on our limitations.  We did a brief mediation on obstacles in our own life, and then moved to an art project on the tables.

Donna gave everyone some watercolor paper with an outline of Ganesh's head on it.  The students were to use not only watercolors, which can flow together in ways we can't control, but also to adapt the watercolors by using them with items that give other unpredictable effects, such as scattering the paint by putting salt on it, adding wrinkles with plastic wrap, or using crayons for wax resist ornamentations.

After the painting was done, we returned to a circle on the floor, and each artist displayed his/her work and explained his/her design and color choices, as well as discussing anything they had discovered about themselves through this process.

They did an excellent join on their paintings, so I wanted to share them below:

Lesson Plan: Celebrating Diwali

Happy Diwali to all!  Diwali actually lasts for five days, but it is the third day that is supposed to be the most special.  That is the day that Hindus light candles and lamps throughout their house in order to attract Lashmi, the goddess of prosperity and good fortune, to come visit.  If she does, the coming year is supposed to be abundant and lucky.

So for our latest World Religions class, where we are studying Hinduism, the students made Diwali diyas, or ceramic candle holders, in preparation for the big event.  I don't know about everyone else, but we lit my son's for dinner tonight, as we ate some homemade chicken tikka masala on basmati brown rice with stir fried vegetables to celebrate.

I forget sometimes how much middle school students still like creating things with clay.  Every time we have a clay project, it is always a big hit.

See below for some of the students' creations:

Curriculum Resource: Cary Diwali Festival

For those of us who live in communities large enough to host such things, a great supplement to the formal curriculum is ethnic festivals or celebrations that are open to the public.  In many cases, being in a large gathering and celebration of different subpopulations of people unlike our own is the next best thing to foreign travel.

We took advantage of such a learning experience this weekend when we went to the Cary Diwali Festival. Diwali, the festival of lights in Hinduism, is probably the largest religious celebration in India.  For many years now, the Town of Cary and an Indian civic organization, Hum Sub, have organized a free public festival around the time of Diwali, the exact dates of which change from year to year (it is based on a lunar calendar), but always takes place in the fall.  The Research Triangle area has a large population of people whose ancestry came from India, and this festival has grown to be the largest gathering of Indians in the Southeast (or, at least, that's what the announcer on stage said).

It takes place in the Koka Booth Amphitheater (the same site as our summer Symphony trips, which I have discussed before).  The outskirts of the Amphitheater are lined with booths, some offering generic services such as health care, banking, or cell phone service, but others offering tempting morsels of food or gorgeous displays of colorful saris and other Indian clothing and their highly bling-y gold jewelry.   There are also some educational booths, and some raising money for Indian-based charities, many based around improving schools in poor areas of that highly-crowded nation.

All day long, however, the stage is filled with performers in flashing Indian garb who are dancing, singing, and playing instruments.  Most are a myriad of local dance groups of all ages and both sexes (although I only saw one gender perform at a time; however, perhaps there are some mixed gender groups that appeared after we left).  By the evening, however, they bring in a professional singer or dance group that seems to be well known among the native population, although I have never heard of them (nor do we ever stay that late to see them).

While we don't go every year, I wanted to make sure we did drop by this year since we are studying Hinduism right now in World Religions.  And I think it did give my son a better visceral understanding of the vibrant and diverse culture of that fascinating country, India, as well as how Indians in this country are adapting and merging their cultures.  For example, many of the performances seemed like they were introducing more Western musical influences, such as hip hop, into their traditional Indian music and dance.  My favorite trans-cultural show, however, was Bollywood meets Saturday Night Fever, in which a number of pint-sized Travoltas sang in Hindi (or some language I didn't understand), until it came to the chorus, in which the word "Disco" was exclaimed multiple times, all the while with the young boys doing the classic "finger touches hip, then swings and points above the opposite shoulder" that was the rage during Disco-mania in the US.

The following are a few photos to capture the color and action of this annual festival.  If you live in the area and have never been, you should definitely check it out some year.

Lesson Plan: World Religion Dream Catchers

In my short (five-week) World Religion class, we are concentrating on the six religions that have had the most influence on Western culture--Paganism, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam (in order of when they began).   So to help the students keep the order of these religious movements straight, we made World Religion Dream Catchers.

Dream Catchers are a tradition among some Native American tribes (which fall under the Paganism category).  They are a circle created out of a branch of wood, between which string and beads have been strung, creating an open web in the middle.  The idea is that the dream catcher will capture the bad dreams sent to a child, but will allow the good ones through its openings.

Because we are on a restricted budget of both money and time, we made ours out of paper plates, from which I had cut out the centers and punched eight holes around the inner circle of the remaining rim.  I had the students write the names or draw symbols for the six religions (we covered the religious in symbols in class beforehand) on the paper plate rims, and then string yarn from hole to hole IN ORDER of the religion's founding date.  So the first hole was just the start, but then the student would string the yarn through the Paganism hole, then through the Hinduism hole, then Judaism....you get the idea.

Here are some samples of their work.  As always, they were following the same instructions, but came up with some lovely variations.

History Teachers Meet Bollywood!

OK, so that title might be a bit of an exaggeration.

However, a few months ago a had a post about these wonderful history teachers who are posting free music videos on YouTube of history topics set to popular music (check out the link for more background and some of my favorites of their videos).

They have done a couple more since my post, but my favorite is a video about the Mahabharata, the epic Indian morality tales that includes the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred text for Hinduism.  It is done Indian style, with the video of the lead singer demonstrating her use of four arms.




It is great to seem them expanding from basic Western Civilization history.  We are doing Hinduism in the fall, so I'm definitely saving this for my coming classes.