Religious and ceremonial vocabulary (lessons 25-26)
The Hindu-Buddhist ceremonial vocabulary every visitor encounters at temples — puja, prasad, tika, aarti, prashanti, plus how to address monks and priests respectfully.
Public-domain FSI Nepali Basic Course audio, streamed via our server. If the player shows an error, the source file may be temporarily unavailable — try again later.
FSI 1979, lessons 25 and 26 combined — the temple vocabulary every visitor encounters. Minutes 1–7: Hindu temple terms — mandir (temple), murti (idol), puja (worship), prasaad (blessed food, offered to you after a ceremony), tika (vermillion forehead mark), aarti (oil-lamp ceremony, often at dusk), darshan (the act of seeing the deity, the reason most pilgrims come). Minutes 8–14: Buddhist site vocabulary — gumba (monastery), stupa (the dome-shaped reliquary, Boudhanath being the famous one), lama (Buddhist priest), khada (white silk greeting scarf, given to honoured guests), prayer flag (lung ta) and prayer wheel (mani). Minutes 15–22: respect protocols — circumambulating clockwise, removing shoes, no leather inside temples, never touching anyone's head, never pointing feet at altars. Closing drill: how to politely refuse prasaad when offered (you cannot — accept it and either eat a token amount or carry it with you).
Attribution
Audio courtesy of the US Foreign Service Institute (Public Domain) and hosted by Live Lingua. This page links directly to their CDN; we do not re-host or modify the audio.