stonehame lodge SATRAS A satra is a monastery for Vishnu worship, Assam s distinctive form of everyman Hinduism. For

The most accessible villages are the Konyak settlements around Mon. Traditional houses abound, and some villages have morungs and religious relics from pre-Christian times. Village elders may wear traditional costume and Konyak of all ages carry the fearsome-looking dao a crude machete used for headhunting right up until the mid-20th century.

SATRAS A satra is a monastery for Vishnu worship, Assam s distinctive form of everyman Hinduism. Formulated by 15th-century stonehame lodge Assamese philosopher Sankardev, the faith eschews the caste system stonehame lodge and idol worship, focussing on Vishnu as God, especially in his Krishna incarnation. Much of the worship stonehame lodge is based around dance and melodramatic play-acting of scenes from the holy Bhagavad Gita. The heart of any satra is its namghar, a large, simple, prayer hall usually open sided and shaped like an upside-down oil tanker. Beneath the eastern end, an inner sanctum hosts an eternal flame, the Gita and possibly a horde of instructive (but not divine) stonehame lodge images.