Visitors to the public gardens at Waterperry are surprised when they chance across an obelisk made from red granite displaying an ancient Vedic prayer – which begins with the wish that ‘all be happy’ – in English as well as in the original Sanskrit. The sculpture is the work of Simon Buchanan.
The creation of this installation was the idea of Bernard Saunders, the then Steward of the Waterperry estate. Obelisks originated in Egypt around 2,300 BCE and were carved out of granite as a single block of stone. They represented a direct link between the earth and the divine, providing a means of offering prayers to the gods. In this case, the chosen prayer was an ancient Sanskrit prayer for the well-being and happiness of all creatures.
All be happy.
All be without disease.
All creatures have well-being
and
None should be in misery of any sort.
Peace, Peace, Peace.
The obelisk was carved from red Balmoral granite shipped over to the UK from Norway. It weighed a total of four and a half tonnes. It was originally intended to place it in the Waterperry rose garden, but it was too heavy to move there so it was sited nearer the house. Carving the lettering from such hard stone required an air hammer with tungsten carbide chisels and took many months to complete.
It is unusual, to say the least, to see an Egyptian obelisk in the middle of a traditional English garden, and visitors to the gardens react in a variety of ways. Some are moved by the scale of the installation; others by the prayer itself. As Buchanan says, this is a prayer of peace for everyone without exception and so a ‘fantastically appropriate prayer’ for these times.
The Obelisk can be seen in the ornamental gardens at Waterperry.