Visit To Hindu Temple Essay

A Visit to Hindu Temple On November 25th at 10:30am, I arrived at my first visit to a Hindu Temple, Shiv Shakti Peeth at 196-43 Foothill Ave. The temple seemed like it was normal house in the neighborhood of Hollis. The only thing that made it recognizable was the bright red sign and the red gate that led to the backyard entrance. As soon as I reached the backyard there was staircase that had another red awning. The first thing you see when you first walk in is three large circles with images inside outlined with stones, arranged as points of a triangle. One image was of a conch, another of a wheel, and the third was of a yellow U shape with a red line in the middle, all signs associated with Vishnu. The main temple of Vishnu and the smaller temple of Shiva were both constructed with white plaster casting. The large archway was ornately decorated with etchings of flowers, figures, and designs of nature. It was interesting to see so much

The room adjacent to the room that I entered through was much bigger but still maintained that square shape. Though there was only one deity figure in the smaller room, in the larger room there were multiple deities that the worshippers were doing puja for.
While observing the worship going on, I saw one specific goddess, Durga, who was actually a North Indian goddess and brought to this South Indian temple because a wealthy North Indian benefactor had contributed a considerable amount of money to the temple and had requested that his goddess is worshipped there. She was made of white marble and dressed in rich fabric and colors and had flowers surrounding her. She was riding her vahana, her animal-vehicle associated with her, but this could not be seen because she was so lavishly dressed – her clothing was actually covering the animal that she was