Hindu Temples in the Urban Fabric
16 R. Tiwari, Space - Body - Ritual: Performativity in the City, Lanham, Lexington Books, 2010, pp. 3- 5. 17 Ibid. p. 17. 18 Ibid. p. 95.
30
In the book Space - Body - Ritual: Performativity in the City, Reena Tiwari writes about bodily experiences in relation to the spirit and space, and about the importance of the ritual in spiritual practice. Using Henri Lefebvre’s theory describing how physical space and imagined space come together to create lived space, explained in his work The Production of Space, Tiwari analyses various ritual acts and ceremonies and their relation to space and body in the city of Varanasi, India16. A lived experience, she argues, is constructed when the body connects to the mind in the physical environment, and lived experience is necessary in order to transcend through liminality to a spiritual state. The liminal state is the phase of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the intermediate stages of a rite when the initial state no longer remains, and the approaching post ritual mood has not yet been reached. She emphasizes the importance of material space as an actor in the spiritual experience.17 The physical space carries memories and connotations that triggers the events of the imagined space, and together they create the lived experience. The lived space could furthermore be of a spiritual nature if the experienced signifiers associate with actors of that kind. The body is an essential tool in Hindu rituals with chanting, gesticulating, the clapping of hands, and the circling of artifacts all being some of the everyday ritual activities. Tiwari emphasizes the importance that the emotions and sensations are properly channelized in the rituals for the body to move from one state to another, and to become one with Brahman.18 During our study trip to India, we witnessed several rituals, and while observing them, we noticed their incredible sensuousness. The burning of incense, the act of decorating with flowers, the application of bindis, the tasting of food offerings, the touching of deities and temples, the pouring of water, and so on, are all triggering the senses in various ways. The materiality of the world is highly relevant in this context and different ways of interacting with matter as an act of worship unfolds in a large number of ways. We conducted our studies in the Old Town of Ahmedabad, where we wanted to investigate the role of Hindu temples in the urban fabric - how they are used and how they affect their closest surroundings. Temples of various sizes are included in the study, and we formulated four categories depending on their size: tiny (maximum 1m²), small (maximum 10m²), medium (maximum 50m²), and large
