MATRIMANDIRsoul of the city

AUROVILLE

SUBMITTED BY:-

MEGHA TYAGI

RAMANPREET KAUR MOHD.FAHEEM

CONTENTS: 1. About the architect. 2. Introduction. 3. Location. 4. Construction phases. 5. Internal details. 6. History. 7.Planning. 8. Structural details. 9. Technical details.

ARCHITECT:-Mirra Alfassa

Mirra Alfassa (21 February 1878 – 17 November 1973), also known as The Mother, was the spiritual collaborator of  sri Aurobindo. Her full name at birth was Blanche Rachel Miriam Alfassa. The name "Mirra" (or "Mira") was a nickname she preferred to her birthname "Miriam."In the 1960s, it was Mother's dream to create a place where humanity could seek the Divine without having to dredge for food and shelter.She named this place Auroville or City of Dawn. The "Soul of Auroville" is the Matrimandir. It is constructed as a futuristic-looking sphere that houses in its center a Chamber, all white with a transculent globe at the centre lit by single ray of sunlight. 

MATRIMANDIR The Matrimandir (Temple of The Mother) is an

edifice of spiritual significance for practitioners of Integral yoga, situated at the center of Auroville initiated by The Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. It is called soul of the city and is situated in a large open space called Peace from where the future township will radiate outwards. Matrimandir, does not belong to any particular religion or sect. 'Mother' concept stands for the great evolutionary, conscious and intelligent principle of Life, the Universal Mother, - which seeks to help humanity move beyond its present limitations into the next step of its evolutionary adventure, the supramental consciousness.

LOCATION

At the centre of Auroville. CONSTRUCTION PHASES

1. 1970-1971

2. 1992 MATRI MANDIR DIVIDED INTO TWO PARTS-1. Inner chamber2.Outer chamber Inner chamber has 12 meditation rooms and the main hall of matri mandir Outer chamber has 12 gardens ,amphitheatre,banyan tree ,inner park and the future lake .

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MATRI MANDIR ‘S CONCEPTION:

In June 1965, the Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, started speaking of her intention to build, north of Pondicherry, a “universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity.”From the outset she explained that, at the centre of her town, there would be a “Park of Unity” and that, in this park, there would be something she called at first a “Pavilion of Truth”, or “Pavilion of [Divine] Love”, or “Pavilion of the Mother”. Eventually she named this Pavilion “Matrimandir”, which she translated in English as “The Mother’s Shrine”. She added that the “Park of Unity” would consist of twelve gardens representing the “twelve attributes of the Mother” and that eventually the Matrimandir and its Park of Unity would be surrounded by a Lake.

PLAN OF THE MATRI MANDIR

INNER CHAMBER

The spacious Inner Chamber in the upper hemisphere of the structure is completely white, with white marble walls and white carpeting. In the centre a pure crystal-glass globe suffuses a ray of electronically guided sunlight which falls on it through an opening at the apex of the sphere."The most important thing is this: the play of the sun on the centre. Because that becomes the symbol, the symbol of future realisations."There are no images, no organised meditations, no flowers, no incense, no religion or religious forms.

INNER PILLARSName Symbolism

Maheshwari (south pillar)"...her personality of calm wideness and comprehending wisdom and tranquil benignity and inexhaustible compassion and sovereign and surpassing majesty and all-ruling greatness".

Mahakali (north pillar)"...her power of splendid strength and irresistible passion, her warrior mood, her overwhelming will, her impetuous swiftness and world-shaking force".

Mahalakshmi (east pillar)"...vivid and sweet and wonderful with her deep secret of beauty and harmony and fine rhythm, her intricate and subtle opulence, her compelling attraction and captivating grace".

Mahasaraswati (west pillar)

"...equipped with her close and profound capacity of intimate knowledge and careful flawless work and quiet and exact perfection in all things".

THE MOTHER‘S SYMBOL AND PETALSThe meditation rooms inside the twelve stone-clad 'petals' surrounding the Matrimandir carry the names and colours of the 'petals' in the Mother's symbol:Sincerity - light blue Peace - deep blue Equality - blue violetGenerosity- pure violetGoodness- reddish violetCourage - red Progress - orange red Receptivity- orangeAspiration- orange yellow Perseverance - pale yellowGratitude - pale green Humility - deep green

Meaning of colours

In March 1934, Sri Aurobindo indicated through the (above placed) colour chart of the twelve petals pertaining to the symbol:Center and four powers, white;The twelve all different colorsin three groups: • top group red, passing to orange towards yellow;• next group, yellow passing through green towards blue; • and third group, blue passing through violet towards red.• If white is not convenient, the center may be gold (powder).

OUTER CHAMBER The “Park of Unity” would consist of twelve gardens representing the “twelve attributes of the Mother” and that eventually the Matrimandir and its Park of Unity would be surrounded by a Lake. A lone Banyan tree is the geographical centre of the town. In 1968 Auroville’s inauguration ceremony took place around a white Urn, shaped like a lotus bud, which now stands at the focus of a large amphitheatre.

STRUCTURAL DETAILS :The principal load carrying members of superstructure are the four pair of sickle –shaped,38m high reinforced concrete piers. Every other component is supported by these piers. Each pair of piers is 2.1m .Their thickness is 40m above ground level and various from 40cm to 70cm below.

The construction crane, erected in 1980, was required to lift the prefabricated concrete beams into place, each weighting half a ton. The ‘nodes’ which join six beams together were cast in situ using lost ferrocement shuttering . The outer shell consist of ferrocement triangles, which were prefabricated in a workshop, liftrd in place and then grouted.

TECHNICAL DETAILS The columns The columns arrived at

Matrimandir in the beginning of January 1990.They were 24-inch diameter, galvanised, seamless steel pipes, 8.65 mtr long, weighing 830 kg each. There are an average of 15 coats of paint on each column with finer and finer sanding between coats after which the final polishing was done.

The gold discsDisc frame: - Stainless steel tubes

Disc material: - stainless steel sheet

Gold leaf: -28 gm of gold per 1000 leaves

Leaf size: - 85 x 85 mm

Total number of discs:

- 1415

Small convex discs:

- 954

Large concave discs:

- 461

Average diam. (large discs):

- 2.3 meter

Average diam. (small discs):

- 1.5 meter

The crystal globeThe crystal for the Matrimandir arrived in Auroville on 26-4-91 at 10.15 p.m. It was moved into the Matrimandir's Inner Chamber the very next day at 09.45 a.m.The size of 70 cm diameter was marked on the original plan that Mother had drawn for the central object in the Chamber.These firms proposed the type of crystal - optically perfect glass - with the name of Bohr Kron 7.The casting at Schott's in Mainz lasted 15 hours, and was done in a special form of refractory stone, held together by seven metal bands, which was placed on top of a platform built of iron and steel. During the casting process the glass in the form was kept at a constant temperature.

The heliostat and lensThe heliostat is controlled by a computer program, which moves a mirror across the sun's path every day. This mirror projects sunlight into a lens, that projects the single sun ray down on the crystal. To make sure that the ray strikes the crystal exactly in the centre, a photo sensor is installed in the path of the ray itself and relays the data on the ray's position to the computer, which in turn will adjust the ray to the correct position if necessary.

Focal length, first lens:

-30 m, diam, 45 cm

Focal length, second lens:

-5 m, diam. 25 cm

Diameter of sun-spot on the globe:

- 180 mm

THANK YOU….