Murtis in their Natural Habitat

One of the more unusual items I have collected and offered in my Dharma work over recent years has been a constellation of old marblemurtis, the temple statuary seen ubiquitously in homes, temples and roadsideshrines across India. When properly installed, these murtis are considered literal forms of the divine, and worshipped as a manifestation of the Deity represented—in the above photograph taken near Keshi Ghat in the sacred Yamuna River town of Vrindavan, we see Shiva, Parvati and their son Ganesh with the Yamuna flowing past.