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You will arrive at an altar where a brahmin priest wearing only a dhoti will take your offerings of fruit, flowers and money. He'll give you a puja, a blessing, and smear your head with colored powder: horizontal white stripes if it's a Shiva temple; vertical red if it's Vishnu.

If you're a Hindu you may be allowed into the sanctum sanctorum. In this small, dark, central room the God or Goddess resides. There may be only a small statue or, in a Shiva temple, merely a lingam - a phallic object symbolizing regenerative power.

Puja