Om Siddhivinayak Machindra Dutt Mandir

Om Siddhivinayak Machindra Dutt Mandir stands in Katraj, in the south of Pune. It is not a large building and it does not try to be. What happens inside it is old, ordinary and unbroken: a lamp is lit at dawn and at dusk, a fire is built twice a week, and a teacher gives what he was given.

Anyone may come. There is no charge, no membership, and no expectation that you will return.

The name of this mandir is not a title. It is a description of what stands inside it, and each part of it names a presence.

Om Siddhivinayak

Ganesha in the aspect that grants siddhi — accomplishment. Nothing begins here without him, because the first obstacle in any spiritual undertaking is the one in the person undertaking it.

Machindra

Machindranath, the first human master of the Nath sampradaya, and the source of the transmission that continues at this mandir. His presence here places the mandir inside the Navnath devotion that runs through Maharashtra rather than beside it.

Dutt

Dattatreya — Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva in a single form, and the guru-principle itself. Thursday, guruvar, is his.

Read together, the name says what kind of place this is: obstacles are cleared here, a lineage is kept here, and the guru-principle is honoured as the thing that makes both possible.