by Dr. Christian Schneider
The mostly larger-than-life marble statues of the gods are one of the secrets of the temple. Each of these statues is intended to provide a home for the gods so that they can dwell there and bring their spiritual power to bear in the temple. This purpose can only be fulfilled if the artistic design is so precise that the gods feel invited and take up residence. A great task for the artists.
The statues of the gods had already been designed in detail during the lightning vision in the year 1997 of Shin’s temple. In the years that followed, Shin gradually brought these statues to life by creating sketches, which were then worked out and modelled in plaster by Mikhael. This process took many years of development, as the resulting designs were constantly improved and new models were created.
In spring 2017, Shin walked through the temple with Christian and labelled all the places with the respective statues of the gods. At the end of the walk-through, we ended up with 72 statues of gods to be made, many of them 2.70 metres high. If you add the other statues, such as houses of worship, thrones, etc., you get a total of 102 murtis – that’s the Indian name for the statues – with a total weight of 200 tonnes. The transport weight varies from 80 kg to 6 tonnes.
In 2022, all of the designs will have reached a level of maturity that will allow them to be produced in marble. After Virendra carefully contacted various stonemasons, we decided to award the contract to a stonemason in Rajasthan, whose first task was to produce the statues of Shin and Nagaraj ji . After he completed this task to our complete satisfaction, we commissioned a further 36 murtis for the first floor and the ground floor in 2023.
Mikhael had planned to complete his “great artistic work” for the temple at the beginning of 2024 with the final models of the vases and to take a longer break after he had already taken on the additional task of designing the murti of “Shiva and Shakti in dance” last year. But there is another murti to be made – Vayu (the winds) – and Mikhael has agreed to take on this task again. This will be his greatest masterpiece, because Vayu has 8 arms and 8 legs and is in dynamic motion to represent the wind. This must be realised artistically. Read more about it…
