Charlie and Blue Hear All About Hindu Worship
Charlie Wake up blue.
Blue Hello, Charlie. Hello, you.
Blue It's dancing time.
Charlie Blue. Blue!. Sorry, Blue. Did I scare you?
Blue What do you think? Did you want something?
Charlie I just wanted to know what you were listening to.
Blue Oh, why didn't you ask?
Charlie I tried, but you didn't hear me. Hmm.
Blue Why are our senses so important?
Charlie Because without them, we wouldn't be able to see, or hear, or feel, or anything. Hindus use all of their senses when they go to the temple to pray to God. I learned about it in school today. This is a picture of a Hindu god called Ganesha in a shrine. That's a special place for praying to God.
Blue What do they do with all those things?
Charlie Why don't you come with me and find out?
S3 Zippity zip. Let's go on a trip.
Geetha Hello, Charlie. Hello, blue.
Charlie and Blue Hello, Geetha.
Geetha Welcome to the Sri Ganapathy temple. Now, when we normally come to the temple, we always wear some special clothes. So would you like to have some as well?
Charlie Yes, please.
Blue Yes, please.
Geetha Right. So for Charlie we've got a lovely shawl. And it's blue as well. Then we've got a special shawl for Blue. Two bangles. We have a special bindi or pottu that we put on our forehead. Now, would you like to come in and see the temple?
Charlie and Blue Yes, please.
Geetha Come on.
Blue Who's that?
Geetha This is Lord Ganesha. As Hindus, we believe that God comes in many different forms and he's one of the most important ones, because all Hindus pray to him, and we pray to him to remove all the problems that we have in our lives. Many Hindus will have a statue of him in their homes.
Blue Why does he have an elephant's head?
Geetha Well, when we think of elephants, we always think of them as being kind and strong and wise, and hopefully we will try and bring those things in ourselves as well. And we know that he'll be strong enough and wise enough to help us remove all those problems in our lives.
Blue Why is there so much stuff all around him?
Geetha Well, this is a special place called a shrine, and it's where we worship God. And all the things that you see in front of you are the things that we offer to him, when we do our prayers. And we use all our senses so that we can concentrate fully on our prayers to him.
Blue What are senses?
Geetha Well, they're the things that help us make sense of the world, um, and so we have five of them, and they are sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell.
Blue So I can see the statue.
Geetha Yes, it's called a murti. It's an image of God, and you can see all the beautiful flowers and the lamps, the garlands and the clothes and the beautiful jewellery. It makes our sense of sight happy. What can you smell?
Blue So I can smell something smoky and sweet and flowery.
Geetha Well, that's the incense, and also the strings of flowers, which we call garlands.
Blue But I can't hear anything.
Geetha Well, it's quiet now, but when we do our service, then we might play music, or we may sing, or we'll have the bell ringing, or we might blow a conch.
Blue What's a conch?
Geetha Well, it's a seashell which is found in India, which is where our religion began, and if you blow in it hard, it can make a really loud sound like a trumpet.
Blue What do you touch?
Geetha Well, in our shrines at home, we're allowed to touch the murtis. Here at the temple. We're not allowed to do so, but the priests will touch them. And we treat them as the most important person in our lives, so we bathe them daily. We put new beautiful clothes on them and all the garlands to make them look beautiful. We also put special powder on our forehead, which is called a bindi or a potu, um, and then we also put our hands together in prayer and that makes our sense of touch happy.
Blue What do you taste?
Geetha Well, that's the bit that everybody enjoys. We make special sweets, which we offer to God, and also all the sorts of fruits that we can think of. And once it's been blessed, then we give it to everybody to share, and it's called prasad.
Blue Yummy.
Charlie Time to go home now, blue.
Blue Thank you for answering my questions.
Geetha You're welcome. This is a special flower to remind you of your visit to the temple.
Blue Thank you.
Charlie What did we learn today?
Blue Well, today we went to a mandir that's a Hindu temple. And we learnt that, Hindus believe that God can be seen in many different forms. Murtis are statues of gods that Hindus use in worship. Sight, sound, smell, taste and touch are all used when Hindus worship.
Blue Shh. Guess who.
Charlie Blue, I told you before, this game doesn't work when there's only the two of us!
Blue I wish I knew why.
Charlie Good night. Blue.
Blue Night, Charlie.
