Q1.
Do any of the pictures look familiar to you? Can you name similar places found in your neighbourhood?
Answer
Start by naming what the pictures actually show, then match each type to your own surroundings.
| In the pictures | What kind of sacred place it is | Look for this near you |
|---|---|---|
| Fig. 8.1 — stone temples among tall deodar trees | A temple complex in a forest | Your village or town temple, especially one in a grove or on a hill |
| Fig. 8.1 — rows of lit diyas floating on a river at dusk | A river ghat used for worship | The ghat, tank or riverbank where your town holds aarti or immersion |
| Fig. 8.1 — a white stūpa on a bare mountain | A Buddhist stūpa | A stūpa, vihāra or monastery, if there is one in your district |
| Fig. 8.1 — a shrine standing in the middle of a temple tank | A sacred water body | The temple tank, kunḍ, stepwell or pond people keep clean for rituals |
| Fig. 8.1 — upright stones in an open field | Sacred stones / a tribal or folk shrine | Village boundary stones, a devgudi, a gramadevatā platform |
| Fig. 8.1 — tree roots covered with threads, lemons and kumkum | A sacred tree | The peepul, banyan or neem near your school that people circle and tie threads on |
| Fig. 8.2 — a crowded dargah, a mosque, a synagogue interior, a fire temple | Shrines of Islam, Judaism and Zoroastrianism | A dargah, mosque, church, gurdwara, agiary or synagogue in your city |
Sample answer: “Yes — the picture of the tree hung with threads and lemons is very familiar. There is an old peepul tree at the corner of our street; people tie red threads around it, put kumkum on the trunk and no one cuts its branches. The picture of the river with lamps is like the Ganga ghat we visit at Kartik Purnima. Near my home there is also a small hill temple that we climb on foot during the festival, a dargah where people of every community tie threads at the window, and a church at the end of the market road.”
Why the book asks this first: to show that ‘sacred geography' is not something distant and ancient. It is the ordinary map of your own neighbourhood — a tree, a tank, a hill, a shrine — read with different eyes.