Hawaii to get first all-stone Hindu temple outside India

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Hawaii to get first all-stone Hindu temple outside India

Wailua, Hawaii, [united States]

 

In a clearing within Kauai Aadheenam's lush gardens, the

ping, ping, pinging of metal chipping at stone can be heard as

a half-dozen artisans from India put the finishing flourishes

on the Hindu monastery's legacy for the ages.

Hand-carved in granite and shipped in pieces to the island

from India, the Iraivan Temple is faithful to the precise

design formulas defined by South Indian temple builders a

thousand years ago.

 

The $8 million temple to the god Shiva is the first all-stone

Hindu temple outside of India, according to the Kauai monks.

The project is a rarity even in India.

 

The ranks of skilled carvers from India have dwindled in

recent centuries, as stone has yielded to concrete and steel.

Design modifications in new temples outside India have

become a necessity to make worship at the traditionally open-

air spaces bearable during the winters in Canada or New York

City.

 

Lush, tropical Kauai, known as Hawaii's Garden Isle, doesn't

have that problem.

 

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Monks | Shiva

" Actually it's the first all-stone temple made anywhere in

quite a while. I think our architect in India said he's made two

in 50 years, " said Sannyasin Arumugaswami, a generously

bearded monk enveloped in an orange cotton robe.

 

Construction began in 1990 and could take another 10 years

to finish because of the mass of the structure and the skill

needed to build it. The temple has already incorporated 80

shipping containers worth of stone and is surmounted by a

gold-gilt cupola carved over three years by just four men.

 

The temple is the vision of a former ballet dancer and

Californian who founded the monastery back in 1970,

Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami.

 

Subramuniyaswami, who died at 74 in 2001, embraced Hindu

monasticism in the late 1940s. Today his Kauai monastery is

home to 22 monks who spend their days in prayer at the

monastery's current Kadavul Temple, tending the monastery's

fruit orchards and livestock, or putting out the order's

quarterly publication " Hinduism Today. "

 

While many of the Kauai monks are converts, hailing from

about six different countries, the order's focus, as reflected in

its stone temple, is on tradition.

 

And the rules here are strict.

 

While day-trippers are welcome, the monastery does not

allow the curious to try out monastic life for a few days or

weeks. The minimum stay is six months. And all the monks

are celibate, single and male. Once they take their permanent

vows, they do not speak of their lives before the monastery.

 

" It's like the institution was picked up in India and plopped

down here ... Something our founder purposely tried to do is

not dilute it or change it seriously because of where it is, " said

Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami, the current guru and abbot

of the monastery.

 

Still, the ascetics' traditional orange, yellow or white cotton

robes and shaved or bearded appearances belie their modern

savvy. These monks have cellphones, digital cameras,

podcasts and widescreen computer monitors to put out their

magazine, with a worldwide circulation of 15,000 print and

5,000 digital. The monastery's website gets up to 40,000 hits

a day.

 

" If you start searching Hinduism on the Web you come to us

in a hurry, " said Arumugaswami, who is also managing editor

of the magazine.

 

The monks do not entirely eschew outside society.

 

They have been deeply involved in community actions, which

include helping design and print anti-drug bumper stickers

they then donated to Kauai county, said state Sen. Gary

Hooser, who lives near the monastery.

 

" They're very good neighbors. ... They have a significant

presence in terms of building their temple and the monks and

the property they have there. But they manage that presence

very well, so it's very low key, " Hooser said.

 

The monastery's partially constructed temple now stands at

the edge of small valley that plunges down to the Wailua

River, a pond and a few rushing waterfalls, and against a

distant backdrop of soaring green mountains. Complete with

tropical flowers and other plants - some purchased from the

National Tropical Botanical Garden headquartered on Kauai

- the monastery's landscaped gardens are awe-inspiring.

 

" Part of the object is to place the temple in just the most

beautiful Hawaiian environment possible, " said

Arumugaswami, explaining that the temple's surroundings are

a " natural " temple.

 

Among the primary tenets of the order - which has about

8,000 temple supporters and several hundred close disciples

- is the belief that Shiva is in everything and everyone. The

goal is to understand one's oneness with Shiva, and therefore

be freed from the eternal cycle of death and rebirth into the

physical world.

 

Subramuniyaswami left specific instructions for the new

temple's construction. No machinery may be used to cut the

stone, which he believed would destroy the stone's " song. "

Machines are only used to lift some of the larger stones into

place. The guru also required that the temple be built without

debt, prompting a fundraising campaign that has so far raised

$10 million toward its goal of $16 million, half of which

would be set aside as a maintenance endowment.

 

The building still awaits part of its roof and its lava rock base

that will be an homage to the design of sacred Hawaiian

heiaus, ancient stone platforms used for worship in the

islands. And the 700-pound crystal lingam - a symbol of the

god Shiva - now housed in the monastery's Kadavul Temple

has yet to be installed in the new temple's inner sanctum.

 

But the building began to spiritually " wake up " during a

ceremony held last year.

 

" The way that we look at a temple in Hinduism is that the

temple itself is a form of God. And so it is divine. It's not just

a building. That's why we go through so much trouble to

build it, " Arumugaswami said.

 

[see the article for a picture of the stonework]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-06-29-hindu-

hawaii_N.htm

or

http://tinyurl.com/yqsssr