Your Home Mandir: Setting Up and Caring for a Small Shrine in Any Home

Inside the workbook

What the file includes.

How to Use • Read the safety page first, and ask at home how your family keeps its shrine: which deity, which direction and which daily custom • Find your size of shrine: a wall shelf, a cupboard or cabinet, a corner or small table, or a puja room • Walk round your home with the ten-point place checklist and fill in My Place Finder; six or seven ticks is a good place • Sketch your layout on the blank grid, set it up once, then keep it with the five-minute routine and the four quick cards Read This First: Safety • Only an adult lights a flame, and only an adult puts it out; never leave a flame burning in an empty room or while the household sleeps • Keep every lamp on a metal plate, at least 30 cm (12 inches) from curtains, cloth, paper, flowers, hair and any shelf above • Never light a flame inside a cupboard, under a shelf or near a fan: bring the lamp out to a tray in front, or use an LED lamp inside • Keep camphor, oil and incense in a lidded tin, and matches or a lighter in a separate closed box; never store matches with camphor, and keep both high, out of children's reach, away from the lamp and away from heat • Camphor is poisonous if swallowed, even a small piece: if a child swallows any, get medical help at once • LED lamps and tealights often run on button batteries: choose ones with a screwed-shut battery cover, and if a child may have swallowed a battery, get medical help at once • One incense stick, not a bundle, with a window or door open; less or none for children, older or pregnant people and anyone with asthma • Some flowers, such as lilies, are poisonous to cats • Heavy brass or stone murtis go on a shelf screwed to the wall, never on removable strips; fix tall cabinets so they cannot tip • Never pour water on burning oil or ghee; for a burn, cool it under running water for twenty minutes and get medical advice; in an emergency in India call 112, elsewhere your local emergency number What It Is • A practical guide to keeping a small, clean and safe shrine in a real home: a rented flat, a shared room, a hostel, a bedroom or a family house • Plain Words: mandir, murti, kula devatā, iṣṭa devatā, pūjā, diyā, āratī, prasāda, prāṇa-pratiṣṭhā, Vāstu and more • Four Sizes of Shrine, with what each is good for and what to watch for • Starting from nothing: a clean place, one murti or picture, a small water pot and a cloth are enough Choosing the Place • What a good place needs: clean, steady, reachable, dry, safe for a flame, with air, light and room in front • Directions in Tradition: the north-east (īśāna) and facing east or north, described as views many traditions hold, with a compass diagram; a shrine that cannot face east is not at fault • When your home will not fit the rules: a bathroom in the north-east, one room for everything, a bedroom, a rented flat with no drilling, a home shared with people of other faiths • Places many families avoid, the reason usually given, and a kind way round each one What to Keep There • Choosing murtis and pictures: the family deity first, then your own; murti or picture; sacred stones; pictures of family members who have passed away • How many: fewer is easier, one of each form, small murtis at home, and a simple table for what to do with six, ten or more images • Materials and what they need: brass, copper, silver, marble, stone, wood, painted clay, prints, plated metal and glass • The basic kit, essential and optional, and gifts and inherited pieces Arranging the Shrine • Seven principles for any shrine: one clear centre, steps not crowds, a finger's width between images, and more • Three layouts with diagrams: the wall shelf, the cupboard or cabinet, and the corner or small table • My Mandir Sketch: a blank grid for drawing your own Cleaning and Care • The daily tidy and the weekly clean • Cleaning by material, including marble that must never meet lemon or vinegar and painted pieces that must never be bathed • Broken murtis and old pictures, gently, with a pointer to Old Offerings at Home • Troubleshooting: soot, oil stains, ants, damp, dull marble, fading pictures, a flickering lamp, clutter and curious children; nothing here is an omen Lamp, Incense and Festival Days • The safe lamp: which lamp, where, who, how long, putting it out, the LED lamp, and what to do if something catches fire • Incense, dhūp and camphor, used lightly and stored safely • Festival dates for New Delhi from November 2026 to October 2027, from Diwali on Sunday 8 November 2026 to Diwali on Friday 29 October 2027, each with a simple shrine idea; check your own city • Decorating safely: flowers, cloth, rangoli, rows of lamps and fairy lights Moving, Travel and Family • Moving house: pack it last, unpack it first, and set up early in the new home • A travel shrine in a box, about the size of a book, with an LED tealight and no matches, oil or camphor • When you are away, unwell or in mourning, described gently, with your family's custom first • Children and the shrine: real jobs by age, a child's own shelf, and adult-only flames Five Minutes a Day • The five-minute routine in six steps, with a diagram: arrive, tidy, water, light, offer, close • Two verses for the shrine, Bhagavad Gītā 9.26 and 9.27, in Devanagari and Roman letters, with plain meanings written by VedicWe • Questions families ask: a bedroom shrine, a missed day or week, an LED lamp instead of a flame, offering food, a fallen picture, and anyone who says you must buy a remedy • A twenty-one-day tracker Tools You Can Print • Four quick cards: Setting Up · Five Minutes · Cleaning · Safety • My Place Finder, My Mandir Sketch and the twenty-one-day tracker • A glossary of the words used in the book Read Next Old Offerings at Home · Light the Lamp · Evening Aarti at Home · Start Here: A Simple Daily Practice · Morning Sandhyā at Home · Namaskara at Home · Tulsi at Home · Kolam at the Door · Grace at the Table · A Simple Sankalpa · Weekday Devotion at Home · Read the Panchang · Temple Visit Prep · Sacred Sound · Open the Gita · Ekadashi at Home · Purnima at Home · Pradosh at Home · Satyanarayan Katha at Home · Hanuman Chalisa at Home · Ramayana at Home · Gau Seva at Home Format: 56-page PDF, US Letter, digital download. Offered for educational and devotional purposes, with your family's custom first. It describes common household ways of keeping a small shrine; customs differ by region, community, family and teacher, and none is presented as the only correct one. Directions and placements are described as traditions some families follow, not as rules or promises, and a home that cannot follow them is not at fault. It makes no promises of luck, wealth, health, success or any particular outcome, makes no medical, astrology or Vāstu claims, sells no remedies, and does not rank regions, communities or customs.