garbhagriha: (Sanskrit) The "innermost chamber," sanctum sanctorum, of a Hindu temple, where the primary murti is installed. It is a small, cave-like room, usually made of granite stone, to which only priests are permitted access. Esoterically it represents the cranial chamber.

See: temple.

(See also: Garbhagriha, Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

sanctum sanctorum: "Holy of holies." Garbhagriha.

The most sacred part of a temple, usually a cave-like stone chamber, in which the main icon is installed.

See: darshana, garbhagriha, temple.

(See also: Sanctum sanctorum, Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

shikhara: (Sanskrit) "Summit or crest."

The towering superstructure above the garbhagriha in North Indian style temples. In Southern temples, shikhara refers to the top stone of the superstructure, or vimana.

(See also: Shikhara, Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Ever since historian Ananda Coomaraswamy extolled the Nataraja bronze (dancing Shiva) from Tamil Nadu as ''poetry but nonetheless science’’, interpreting the Nataraja as the ''cosmic dance’’ of Shiva has been widely accepted.

Fritjof Capra catapulted Nataraja into a modern-day scientific icon when he euphorically stated in his cult book of 1974 The Tao of Physics that ''the dancing Shiva is the dancing universe, the ceaseless flow of energy going through an infinite variety of patterns that melt into one another’’.

(See also: Nataraja, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

temple: An edice in a consecrated place dedicated to the worship of God or the Gods. From the Latin templum, "temple, sanctuary; marked space."

Hindu temples, over one million worldwide, are revered as sacred, magical places in which the three worlds most consciously commune - structures especially built and consecrated to channel the subtle spiritual energies of inner-world beings.

The temple's psychic atmosphere is maintained through regular worship ceremonies (puja) invoking the Deity, who uses His installed image (murti) as a temporary body to bless those living on the earth plane. In Hinduism, the temple is the hub of virtually all aspects of social and religious life. It may be referred to by the Sanskrit terms mandira, devalaya (or Sivalaya, a Siva temple), as well as by vernacular terms such as koyil (Tamil).

See: garbhagriha, darshana, mandapa, pradakshina, sound, teradi, tirthayatra.

(See also: Temple, Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

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