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An Ashram is a hermitage, ideally speaking. By definition, in the Hindu
sense, they are outside normal village or city society.
>
> 2) The priests that work in the Ashram are they special priests in some
> way? What is there common dress like?
>
> 3) What does an Ashram look like from the exterior? Is there special
> markings on the outside of the building?
>
> 4) What does it look like on the interior? Are there special markings on
> the interior?
>
There are no generalizable answers to these questions. An ashram can
range from a simple thatched hut, with the barest minimum of
necessities, to moderately comfortable houses to grand palatial
mansions. There can be wide variability in the looks of an Ashram, both
in the interior and the exterior. The priests dress and have body
markings according to the particular group they belong to. In the south,
for example, the priests in an Ashram mostly wear orange robes if they
are monks, and white dhotis tied in different ways if they are married
or are students. The upper body is left bare during worship and covered
by a simple cotton robe thrown across the shoulders otherwise. In the
north, especially in the Himalayas, where there are thousands of
Ashrams, people who are not monks tend to wear shirts, to fight the
cold. If they are Vaishnavas, you will see vertical stripes on the
forehead and other parts of the body, otherwise, you will see them
wearing horizontal stripes. Monks cover their heads with a portion of
the upper robe, while others do not. If the Ashram is one of the so
called neo-Vedantin ones, the monks typically don't wear any marks on
their foreheads, and dress differently from traditional monks too. They
don't cover their heads, and they wear shirts.
To see pictures of Ashrams, walk into any New Age bookstore and look at
the sections on "Eastern/Buddhis/Hindu" and you will find many books of
variable quality and purpose, with pictures in them.
S. Vidyasankar
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