Sri Krishnan Temple in Singapore, a collective reportage

Simo Capecchi  with Rita Sabler, Tan Yu Qi, Rebecca Coronel, Suta Lee, Peggy Wong, I Jin Chew, Luis Araujo, Marc Holmes and Laurel Holmes (photos) at VI Urban Sketchers Symposium in Singapore, July 2015.

Last summer we went sketching inside the Sri Krishnan Temple, an hindu temple on Waterloo street in Singapore. We removed our shoes and entered the temple, trying to understand what was going on. Young priests and devotees spoke a very poor English and Chinese so we were all (local sketchers too) a bit in a foreign land. Priests did smile and seemed not to disagree with our sketching activity (photos inside are forbidden) so we spent the whole morning drawing what we discovered was a special ritual: July 24 was Garuda Jayanthi: a celebration of Lord Garuda’s birthday.

Peggy Wong sketched the entrance and the temple as seen from a building opposite in Waterloo street.

In Waterloo street the Hindu temple and the nearby Chinese temple are two of the oldest buildings of Singapore (late 19° century) surrounded by recent skyscrapers in a commercial and popular district. Garuda with eagle’s wings and Hanuman with a monkey face, guard Sri Krishnan temple entrance where you can stop to light joss sticks – a ritual that may have come from Chinese tradition and take place almost the same in Chinese temple aside. As a stronger connection between the two temples, a statue of Guanyin (to whom the Chinese temple is dedicated) is also hosted among other gods inside the Hindu shrine.

Garuda and Hanuman statues at the temple entrance, by Rita Sabler

Inside Sri Krishnan temple we first observed the morning Puja (pray) with Pujari chanting mantras, and sprinkles water on devotees with mango leaves, while they pray and offer bananas and coconuts.

In Tan Yu Qi drawing, five elements are part of the Puja: water, fire, wood, metal, earth.

Than Garuda Jayanthi celebration begun with the Lord statue being hidden from devotees while the priests washed it and prepared it for Abhisheka (Sanskrit) /Abhishegam (Tamil): a ritual offering by several alternated showers of water, milk, honey, turmeric (a bright yellow powder), petals, sandalwood being poured on the statue. The ritual lasted at least one hour and was officiated by two priests, while they chanted mantras. An intense yellow liquid poured into the street to a drainage made on purpose in front of the temple entrance.

Simo Capecchi, Garuda Abhisheka

Rita Sabler, Garuda Abhisheka

At the end of the ritual devotees are invited to eat together in the backyard and we were surprised to be included among them and offered a delicious vegetarian meal: Prasadam is the food offered to the Lord and later consumed together by worshippers. Since I had to leave quickly, they even insisted to give me two portions take away!

Before leaving I met a young man who spoke a perfect english and invited him to our next day sketchcrawl: I wished he could help me to add some texts to our drawings. Mr. Siva Gopal Thaiyalan missed our appointment but was so nice to email me weeks later: “Thank you very much for sharing these lovely drawings. The narratives are accurately captured and well documented. I have shared this with the person in charge for the Abhishegam that day and he was absolutely delighted”. I was so happy for this opportunity, my first chance of a brief contact with Hindu religion during an extraordinary week in Singapore.

My complete sketchbook in this set.

Rita Sabler’s other drawings on her blog.

See ALL PARTICIPANTS DRAWINGS and more photo.

Marc Holmes has been with us too and so was Laurel Holmes who took these photos: