Sthala Vriksha

A Sthala Vriksha or Sthala Vruksham (Tamil:ஸ்தல வ்ருக்ஷம்), is a monumental tree that is indigenous to every historical Hindu temple. This forms a prominent feature of Koils, Hindu temples of the Dravidian style.[1]

Besides the dominant feature of a temple's architecture comprising the Gopuram, Vimanam and the sanctum, the temple tree is also considered holy. Some of the temples and historical places derive their names from such trees.

Hinduism and ecology is a growing subject of interest and importance of these trees are reiterated by doing poojas to them, tying sacred thread and bells during days of religious importance

Footnotes

  1. Ching, Francis D.K.; et al. (2007). A Global History of Architecture. New York: John Wiley and Sons. p. 762. ISBN 0-471-26892-5.
gollark: How to avoid thread necromancy: post an entirely new thread and link to the old one.
gollark: WELCOME!!!!!!!!!!¡!!!!!!¡!!!!!!!!1!1!!1!1!!!1!1111!!!!!!!¡!!!!!1!!¡!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SHIFT!!!!!
gollark: I suppose I could just wipe them, but this way it's kind of funnier.
gollark: I opened an instance to the internet for demo purposes, including to a bunch of esolang programmers, and it's actually overrun with self replicating notes now.
gollark: I have my own custom webapp for note taking which I never actually use. It's also stuck eternally at about 80% finished like all my programming projects.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.