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You will use this worksheet for both your Eastern religion visit and your Western religion visit.
Name: Jennifer
Jaramillo
Where I went: Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple (SLC Krishna Center), 965 E 3370 S, SLC, UT 84106
When I went: June 18, 2016
In order to get credit for your site visits, you must complete the following questions and submit via upload at the
appropriate time (Midterm or Final). Please use complete sentences, and no question should be answered as yes
or no only.
BEFORE YOU ATTEND: List 3 of what you understand to be the primary beliefs of this faith.
1. Based on the name of the temple, I understand that the followers are mainly Hare Krishnas and/or Vaishnavities. While
Krishna is an incarnation of Vishnu, these followers typically worship Krishna without a reference to Vishnu. They also
worship Radha, a female companion of Krishna.
2. These followers use the Bhagavad-Gita as a primary teaching scripture. According to the textbook, this book is said to
be a poetic song from Krishna and the eighteenth book of the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is a famous Hindu epic
that contains over 100,000 poetic verses in Sanskrit. According to the temples website, the book is said to contain
detailed explanations about Krishna, Indian spiritual philosophy and theology, karma, creation, and so forth.
3. The tale of Krishna and Radha serves as a model of a bhakti path the way of devotion to Krishna. The tale goes that
Radha is one of the cowherd girls, or gopis, that dances and falls in love with Krishna. When Krishna goes away and
never come back to her, Radha fall into grief and develops an intense longing for his return. She devotes herself to him
only. Hindus believe that doing so is a powerful way to concentrate on Krishna.
for they provide dairy products they need in order to fulfill their special dietary needs. They also practice prasadam, which
is providing blessed food for Krishna and his devotees after worship. It is a way to respect and thank Krishna for
abundance of food. Hare Krishnas believe that Krishna has many forms and incarnations and can be anyone so its
important to respect all forms of life because hurting one life means hurting Krishna.
1) Physical (Spatial) observations: What did the worship space look like?
a) Was there symbolism on the exterior of the building? What is its purpose?
While the building does not look like a temple, there are two statues at the entrance. They appear to be
Krishna and Radha. There is a sign that indicates that the building is a Krishna center as well as a
Krishna gift store. A large site has been dug up to the southwest side of the building in preparation for a
new temple establishment. I have seen a blueprint and I speculate that the new temple will be as
spectacular as the one in Spanish Fork. I think the purpose of the statues is symbolizing Krishna and
Radha so they are available to be worshiped and greet devotees upon the entrance.
b) What rituals marked the boundary between sacred and profane? (The extraordinary and the ordinary).
As far as I can tell, upon entering the building, one has to take their shoes off and store them in a shoe
room. It appears that the whole building is a sacred space called mandir. Removing shoes appears to be
a profane ritual with sacred elements because removing shoes itself is ordinary but doing so in a mandir
signifies the importance of respecting the space of Krishna.
c) What was the focal point of the space?
To the left of the entrance, there has been a shoe room, an office, a temple room, and a childrens room
in the hall. To the right, there is a kitchen and a prasadam hall. To the north, there is a large room where
main activities and ceremonies take place. Next to the north doors, in the main area, there is a table
where the sacred books are held. One of the books is Bhagavad-Gita As Is. There are many plants and
finely embroidered furniture in the main area as well.
d) What decorated the space? Why was it there?
Many paintings of Krishna have been hanged on many different walls. Paintings of Radha are rare. As far
as I can tell, there is a story behind every painting. For instance, a painting of Yasoda and Krishna
symbolizes a mother-son relationship we can have with Krishna. I speculate that this particular painting is
hanged so that we are reminded to respect all forms of life because we will have different relationships
with Krishna through many life forms. For example, I have an owner-pet relationship with a cat and I
respect the cats autonomy. Doing so respects Krishna in cat form. As stated before, Krishna comes in
many forms. All entities have Krishna inside and Krishna is part of Brahman. We respect all by just
respecting one entity. Other paintings of particular interest illustrates the story of Arjuna and Krishna. It
appears that Krishna instructed the Bhagavad-Gita to Arjuna before they went out to battle and drove in a
chariot. It appears that the pujaris, brahmin priests, consider this book as an important Hindu text. In the
temple room, there stands a statue of Ganesh. While Ganesh is not affiliated with Krishna and Radha, my
understanding is that the statute is there so that people can pray for fortune and success because he is
known to be the Remover of Obstacles. A friend of mine explains that its important to walk backwards out
of the temple room in order not to offend Ganesh by showing your back. Otherwise, Ganesh will not be
pleased and will bestow bad luck.
c) Were the beliefs and the worldview of the religion felt and/or observed in the emotional observations?
How?
Yes, these practitioners practice bhakti, an emotional path of devotion to Krishna, much like the tale of
Krishna and Radha. They do this by dancing. While it seems like Krishna is only one person, he actually
can multiple himself so he can dance with all of us so we can experience joy together. Through this
process, we learn to devote ourselves to Krishna emotionally.