Home worship enables a convenient way to worship without having to go to the Mandir. It provides a food place to educate the family on worship/prayers etc. It also provides a calm, quiet atmosphere for which someone can pray peacefully and clear their thoughts. Worship at the Mandir involves going into a large prayer hall and worshipping together with other people. There are priests to read out prayers and there is usually a place to eat/socialize. Mandirs have a calm atmosphere and unites the Hindu community. Praying alone and praying with other people has advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes you may just want to be alone and therefore worship at home would be better. You may also not have enough time to go to a Mandir or the nearest one may be a long drive. However worship at a Mandir gives the full experience of being a Hindu. It enables you to see large deities and hear prayers read by a priest that you yourself may not know. It also acts as a place to meet other members of the Hindu community. As well as making you feel as is you are fulfilling your dharma because you are actually going somewhere, this giving a nice day out for all the family too. However worshipping from home may develop your personal connection with God.
Hindu worship at home can be done in many ways. However the main way is called Puja. It is usually the mother’s (or woman’s) responsibility to make Puja, but the husband may also perform this. Puja begins early in the morning when a lit candle ‘awakes’ the God when it is put in font of its deity. The spirit of God is then invited to enter the Murti, helping the worshipper focus. The Murti is then placed on a throne or raised platform to show the importance of God. The statue is then washed with ghee (purified butter) as a sign of respect and a humble service to God. Special coloured powders and flowers are used to dress the deity. Incense is burned and a bell summons and proclaims the presence of the deity. A ghee lamp is lit and moved in a circle round the face of the God while praise is sung. This offering of light is called Arti. The mother leads Puja but everyone receives the light, passing their hands over the flame and lifting it across their face. Food, water and flowers are offered. These are not needed to be expensive. During Puja – mantras are repeated; these are usually verses from the holy books. They begin with the syllable AUM. Most Hindus recite the Gayatri Mantra daily. However AUM can also be used as a mantra on its own.
I think that convenient worship can be right for some people. People who lead a busy lifestyle or cannot make it to a Mandir regularly will benefit greatly from it. However I believe that it can be very easy to tempt people to be lazy. Especially the younger generations. As they may get easily distracted buy the TV or friends and think they’ll do it tomorrow and tomorrow and so on. Even adults can get distracted. After a hard days work it some people may just want to relax and watch TV or rest. Or they may not wake up early enough having a lie in, meaning they won’t have time for worship. So I think convenience worship is good for some people but may encourage some to be distracted and become lazy.
The temple offers a range of advantages. For one, some Hindus may not have a shrine at home; therefore the Mandir is the only place they can worship. Especially for people such as university students who wouldn’t be able to fit a shrine in where they live and may be too distracted by work. For people like this the Mandir can be a place to go and relax your mind and relieve stress. The Mandir has a pure and calm atmosphere, therefore relaxes you and enables you to focus more on worshipping. For example if you are at home, although it may be convenient you may not get the full atmosphere and get fully into worshipping. You may be distracted or stressed, where as if you were at a Mandir where everyone is calm and relaxed you will not have any distractions. Also by going somewhere you can feel as if you are leaving your worries behind for a short time. The Hindu community in the UK are a minority. By going to the Mandir it enables you to interact with other members of the Hindu community and worship together. This then reinforces Hindu beliefs and unites Hindus under one common belief and practice. Therefore people will look forward to visiting the Mandir as they will feel as part of a community and will want to pray because they know they are not alone. This sense of belonging increases faith as then you feel secure and may even meet new people. Also it shows devotion that you have made the effort to go to the Mandir showing commitment and gaining blessing/kharma.
There are also increased facilities at the temple, which you would not have at home. There are a large variety of deities and Murti. This would be good because people only usually have a small collection of deities at home. At the Mandir, which is obviously bigger, there are many deities and Murti to worship. This enables Hindus to worship many different Gods/Goddesses, which they wouldn’t usually be able to. There is also a priest at the Mandir. This is helpful as he reads out prayers and mantras from the holy books. Hindus who may not have the holy books, or have access to them can hear their prayers being said. Also the priest has a wide variety of mantras, which some people may not know. Therefore this enables them to learn new prayers that they wouldn’t otherwise know. Also the priest reading mantras can be very calming for a worshipper. It takes pressure of them from having to read them and enables them to go into a meditation-like state. This enables them to relax and focus while the priest reads the mantras, letting them either be calm or quietly read along to themselves.
Although there will be drawbacks to going to the Mandir. Not every Hindu will be able to travel to a Mandir. There may not be one nearby or people may not have the time or transport to get them. This is where worshipping at home really benefits Hindus as it enables them to show that they are devoted and want to pray. Enabling them to fulfil dharma and increase kharma when normally they wouldn’t be able to.
Overall I think both forms of worship are equally as important. As mentioned earlier it may not always be convenient for Hindus to travel to Mandir for whatever reasons. Worshipping at home can also help God become part of everyday life, as well as creating a pure atmosphere at home. However if this could also lead to laziness and unwillingness to worship. This is where the Mandir worship is really good. It’s a place for people to go to worship if they don’t have a shrine or just want to be part of a community. Other people around can help concentration and reinforce beliefs. So I think that both work well with each other. If there were only one then some Hindus wouldn’t be able to worship on a regular basis, even if they wanted to. It allows Hindus to have a choice and not feel ‘forced’ into worshipping as well as providing convenient worship for different people. Worship at home can increase a personal relationship with God and make prayer an everyday routine and then Mandir worship can remind people of their dharma, not just having prayer as a routine but understanding why its good to worship. Therefore people can worship whichever way suits them best and this encourages Hindus to worship regularly. I can understand how people may disagree; they may say the Mandir is the only place where you can properly worship without distractions. Or on the contrary the Mandir may be too much hassle and that home worship is convenient and includes the whole family. However a lot of Hindus to both of these and this is why I believe one form of worship without the other simply wouldn’t work.
