No shelf, no drilling, no upkeep
The case for a hostel room, a rented flat or a desk at work. Nothing is fixed to a wall, nothing stands out when guests come, and the whole thing packs itself when the room is vacated.
Svastika's
Pocket Temple
Gold and silver plated shrines that shut flat and open to the deity inside, for a hostel room, a desk or a bag, and for giving.
Authentic & True7 Days Easy Return
Before you bring one home
Choosing a pocket temple
You have not seen their mandir
A figure has to fit a shelf you never measured. This one competes with nothing already there, so it is the safe choice when you are guessing at the scale of someone else's home.
Water is what ruins one, not time
Gold or silver electroplated over a copper layer on a resin core. That is why it is light and why the detail holds. It is also why abhishek is the one real mistake here. Keep it dry and dust it.
- Handmade in IndiaOne karigar, start to finish
- 7-day easy returnsSafe-arrival guarantee
- Cash on deliveryPan-India, insured courier
- Blessed before dispatchPran-pratishtha pooja done
A short guide
What a pocket temple actually is
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A hinged case that opens to a deity set inside it and shuts again flat. Closed, it is a box. Open, it is a shrine with its own frame, arch and backdrop, so the deity is never an idol lying loose at the bottom of a bag. Check both the open and the closed dimensions on the product page. The closed measurement is the one that decides whether it really travels the way you want it to.
That is the whole idea, and it answers something a murti cannot. A murti needs a surface. A pocket temple brings its own.
It closes, and that is the argument
Everything people like about this format follows from the hinge. It survives a bag without the crown or the hands catching on anything. It goes into a drawer at the end of the day and nothing on it collects dust. It suits a hostel room, where there is no shelf to spare and nothing may be fixed to a wall, and it packs itself when that room is vacated in June. It comes out of a suitcase already set up rather than needing to be arranged.
People who move cities for work describe the same thing. The mandir did not come with them and a full one has never been assembled since. This is the object that fills that gap without pretending to be a mandir.
The safe gift when you have not seen their mandir
The hard part of giving a deity is size. A figure has to fit a shelf you have never measured, beside pieces you have never seen, in a home whose scale you are guessing at. Get it wrong and it goes in a cupboard. A pocket temple sidesteps the question, because it competes with nothing already there and needs no space allotted to it.
It also asks nothing of the person receiving it. No shelf, no daily ritual, no upkeep, and it works the moment it is opened. That is why it keeps coming up as the answer for a thread ceremony, a first mundan, a griha pravesh, a child leaving for university, a colleague retiring, a friend posted to another city.
Everything ships in our own packaging, which is made to be opened rather than merely to survive the journey, and every piece is checked at our own warehouse before it goes out. Both matter more here than on most pages, because a good share of these are handed over in person and opened in front of a room.
Which deities we make it as
Ganesha, Balaji, Nav Durga, Ram Darbar, Jagannath, Sai Baba, Shreenathji, and Ganesh, Lakshmi and Saraswati together in one frame. Two more belong to traditions that are poorly served at this size and are worth naming: the Golden Temple, Harmandir Sahib rendered in gold, for Sikh households, and Mahaveer Jain for Jain homes.
Two honest caveats. Radhe Krishna sells faster than we restock it, so it is often not available when you look. And we do not make a Shiva pocket temple, which people do ask for. A shivling is meant to be bathed and this format cannot take water, so a solid Shiva piece is a better answer than a version of this one would be.
What is under the plating, and what ruins one
A resin core, a layer of copper over it, then gold or silver electroplated on top, and on some pieces both. The copper is the layer that matters, because resin cannot be plated directly and the copper is what the precious metal keys onto. It is also why these are light enough to carry all day, why the detail stays crisp at a small size, and why water is the one thing that ruins them.
So this is a piece to keep and to look at, not one to bathe. No abhishek, no milk, nothing poured over it, and no metal polish or acidic cleaner, all of which take the plating off rather than clean it. Dust it with a dry soft cloth. The hinge is the one moving part, so close it rather than snapping it shut.
If what you want is a shrine that will be actively worshipped with water and offerings, that is a different object. A solid brass murti on a chowki is poured into a mould made for that one idol and broken open once the metal has cooled, which is why the detail holds and why it tolerates being bathed daily. The rest of the plated range sits in gold and silver plated idols, and full-size figures of these same deities are in god idols.
What it costs, and what varies
This format sells from a few hundred rupees upward. Ours sit above a thousand and under three. At this size the difference you can actually see is in the face and the hands, where fine relief either survives the plating or goes soft, so that is where to look in a photograph. The frame looks much the same at every price.
Buying several for a function or for a team is common, and there is a bulk enquiry page for it. For occasions, see griha pravesh and housewarming gifts, upanayanam and thread ceremony gifts, and corporate gifts.
Travel mandir, pocket mandir, temple box
The names move around and all of these mean roughly this object: travel mandir, portable temple, pocket mandir, temple box, mini mandir, chota mandir, mobile temple, personal temple. Two things with nearby names are not this. A portable or foldable mandir is usually a folding wooden unit, furniture rather than something you carry. And a piece meant for a car is made to sit on a dashboard and stay put, which this is not, so see car dashboard idols for that.
✦ Questions, carefully answered
The small things you wondered about
A hinged case that opens to a deity set inside it and shuts flat again. Closed it is a box, open it is a shrine with its own frame, arch and backdrop, so the deity is never an idol lying loose in a bag. It answers something a murti cannot. A murti needs a surface, and a pocket temple brings its own.
Travel mandir, pocket mandir, portable temple, temple box, mini mandir, chota mandir, mobile temple and personal temple all point at roughly this object, as does travel pooja mandir or travel pooja box where that spelling is preferred. Two things with nearby names are different. A portable or foldable mandir usually means a folding wooden unit, which is furniture rather than something you carry, and a car mandir means a piece made to sit on a dashboard and stay put.
It is the format's strongest case. Hostel and shared rooms rarely have a shelf to spare and usually forbid fixing anything to a wall, so a full mandir is not an option and a pocket temple needs neither. It sits closed on a desk or in a drawer, opens when you want it, draws no attention from roommates, and packs itself when the room is vacated at the end of term.
That is what the hinge is for. It shuts flat with the deity held inside, so nothing catches or chips in a bag, there are no loose parts to reassemble, and it comes out of a suitcase already set up. The resin core keeps it light enough that it is not a decision about luggage weight. Keep it away from anything that might leak, since water is what damages the plating.
Ganesha, Balaji, Nav Durga, Ram Darbar, Jagannath, Sai Baba, Shreenathji, and Ganesh, Lakshmi and Saraswati together in one frame. Two more are worth naming because they are poorly served at this size: the Golden Temple, Harmandir Sahib in gold, for Sikh households, and Mahaveer Jain for Jain homes. Radhe Krishna sells faster than we restock it, so it is often unavailable.
No, and it is asked for often enough to be worth answering plainly. A shivling is meant to be bathed, and a plated piece cannot take water at all, so a pocket temple would be the wrong object for how a Shiva shrine is actually used. A solid brass Shiva or shivling is the better answer.
You can keep and honour the deity in one, but not bathe it. No abhishek, no milk, nothing poured over it. The reason is the construction: under the gold or silver there is a copper layer over a resin core, and water gets under the plating and lifts it. For a shrine that will be worshipped with water and offerings, a solid brass murti on a chowki is the right object instead.
A resin core, a layer of copper over it, then gold or silver electroplated on top, and on some pieces both. The copper is the layer that matters, because resin cannot be plated directly and the copper is what the precious metal keys onto. It is also why these are light enough to carry all day, why the detail stays crisp at a small size, and why water is the one thing that ruins them.
Keep it dry and dust it with a dry soft cloth. Never use water, metal polish or an acidic cleaner, all of which take the plating off rather than clean it. The hinge is the one moving part, so close it rather than snapping it shut. Kept dry, it does not need anything else, since it is water rather than time on a shelf that does the damage.
It is the one we would put first, mostly because of size. Giving a deity normally means guessing at a shelf you have never measured, and this one competes with nothing already in the house and needs no space allotted to it. It asks nothing of the person receiving it either, no shelf, no ritual, no upkeep, and it works the moment it is opened. It ships in our own packaging, which matters when it is handed over in person and opened in front of a room.
The format sells from a few hundred rupees upward. Ours sit above a thousand and under three. At this size the visible difference is in the face and the hands, where fine relief either survives the plating or goes soft, so that is where to look when comparing photographs. The frame looks much the same at every price.
It will ride in a glovebox happily, but it is not a dashboard piece. A dashboard idol is made to sit on a sloped surface and stay put through braking, which a hinged case that wants to be opened is not. Buy a piece made for the dashboard for that, and keep the pocket temple for the bag.
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