Hinduism
During the past couple of classes, we were introduced to Hindu pilgrimage. We had previously learned that Non-western religions were monistic, nonlinear, and had praxis. Today, we learned more in depth information about Hinduism itself and tied in those concepts to give us a better understanding of how they are incorporated into the different religions.
Hindu Pilgrimages are all circular in shape, which shows how the people view the world and their lives in general. The pilgrimages are pretty much centered around the Vishreshvara Temple. We learned that the Temple contains seventy-two shrines, fifty six of which are in the form of Shiva. Shiva is one of the Hindu Gods, and is the God of both destruction and sex. People who worship this God can be pointed out because of the three lines that they have across their foreheads to symbolize it.
Hindus also have a couple of other Gods that we learned about, which shows how they are monistic in their beliefs. This means that they see everything as divine and don’t just have one God that they worship such as in Christianity. The second God we discussed was Vishnu, the preserving God. People show worship, or puja, to this God by having two vertical lines on their face. The third God is Brahma, the creator of the world. Each of the Gods also contains different pieces that represent the ways that they see the world, such as containing something in the shape of a circle.
What I found to be the most interesting thing that we learned in class was about the sand mandala that we were showed. There is this circular representation of the Hindu pilgrimage basically, and it is made by the monks totally by sand. De Vega told us that they even do it a couple of grains of sand at a time, so you can image the time that it takes. Then after a while, they just wipe it all away. They do this because of their view of the world. Everything good is always destroyed at some point, then re made again. This is how they see life and the world in general.