Setting up a mandir for the first time

Practice varies a great deal between families, regions and communities. What follows is what is common, not what is required, and it is meant for someone setting up a first mandir with nobody at hand to ask. If your family already has a practice, follow that.

What goes in it

The murtis. The consecrated images themselves. Which deities, and how many, is a family matter. They sit in the main bay, raised above everything else, usually on a cloth and often on a small plinth or step so that the principal murti stands slightly higher than the others.

A lamp. A diya, an oil lamp, or an electric equivalent. Lit during prayer; in many households lit daily at dawn or dusk.

An incense holder. Agarbatti or dhoop, with something underneath to catch ash.

A bell. Rung at the start of prayer.

A thali. A small tray for offerings: flowers, fruit, sweets, water.

Water. A small vessel, often a lota or a spoon and cup, for offering.

Photographs. Of family members who have died, and sometimes of a guru. These usually sit to the side or below the murtis rather than among them.

Books. A Bhagavad Gita, a Ramayana, a prayer book. Usually on the lower shelf.

Roughly where things sit

The vertical order is consistent even when nothing else is: murtis highest, everything used to worship them below, and anything stored below that again.

• Main bay: murtis, on cloth, principal figure centred and slightly raised.
• Shelf or step below: lamp, incense, bell, water, thali.
• Lowest level or drawer: books, spare wicks, matches, cloths, and anything that is not in daily use.

Keys, phones and post do not go in it. Keeping that boundary is most of what makes a mandir feel like one.

What to buy first, and what to leave

Buy the piece and the cloth. Almost everything else you already have or can get locally, and the specific objects a family accumulates (a bell from a grandmother, a thali from a particular trip) are better waited for than bought in a set.

If you are starting entirely from nothing, a lamp, an incense holder and a small thali cover daily use. Add the rest as the practice settles.

Before the first use

Clean the piece and the space around it. Many families have a small ceremony: a griha pravesh for a new home, or a pran pratishtha where new murtis are installed. A priest is usually involved in the second. If you intend to do either, arrange it before the piece is in place, not after, because it affects when the murtis first go in.

If you are not doing a formal ceremony, the common minimum is to clean the piece, place the murtis, light a lamp and offer water.

Practical things nobody mentions

• Leave the doors open while anything is burning. Soot in a closed bay discolours the wood above the flame. See looking after carved wood.
• Put something heat-proof under the diya. Metal or stone, not wood, not cloth.
• Check the height while standing. If the murtis end up below chest height in a floor-standing piece, the piece is too short for the room or needs a plinth.
• Allow floor space in front. Enough to stand, and in many households enough to sit.
• Think about where the ash goes. Incense ash travels further than people expect.

Choosing the piece

The piece sets the space everything else has to fit into, so it comes first. The measurement that decides it is the tallest murti, not the wall. That is covered in what size mandir fits your room.

For which wall it goes on, see which direction should a mandir face.