Author: Mark I. Pinsky
Publication: Orlando Sentinel
Date: June 17, 2005
URL: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/lifestyle/orl-calhindutemple061705jun17,0,277386.story?page=1&coll=orl-living-headlines
A weekend of festivities will help
celebrate a new temple for Hindus.
When the helicopter hovering above
the new Hindu Temple in Casselberry showers the building with rose petals
Sunday morning, Central Florida's religious landscape will never be the
same.
"It's like building a cathedral,"
says Shobana Daniell, a member of the Hindu Society of Central Florida.
A sign posted outside the nearby
social hall describes the temple's dedication as "The Most Blissful Event
of Our Lifetime."
For the past 10 days, the hall has
been a beehive of nonstop activity, filled with the sounds of saws and
the smell of sawdust. Elsewhere in the former sanctuary, volunteers polish
sacred objects, while four young women, members of the congregation's dance
troupe, rehearse on the stage for the weekend's performances.
Outside, the laborers and craftsmen
worked late into the evening to finish the temple and the landscaping.
Sunday's flower shower will come
near the end of a colorful five-day religious and cultural festival, all
free and open to the community, inaugurating the opulent $2.5 million,
12,000-square-foot house of worship. Through Sunday, there will be traditional
music and dance performances, lectures about Hinduism, and vegetarian food.
There will be temple tours Friday
and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday, after dedication ceremonies conducted
by Hindu priests, the temple's interior will be open to the public.
Society members hope their efforts,
through media and letters, fliers and posters in area restaurants, will
result in a big turnout, because the event will be unique for Hindus as
well as non-Hindus, says Daniell, 42, of Oviedo.
"People who have lived in India
haven't seen a temple built or seen these rituals," she says, because temples
in their native country are often hundreds or thousands of years old. "It
will also be good for American-born Indian children to understand what
their religion and their parents' culture is about."
Darshan Patel, 15, of Longwood,
says he thinks it will.
"The new temple symbolizes not only
the creation of a new place of worship," he wrote in an essay, "but also
the passing on of traditions from one generation to another."
Building with balance
At first glance, the lavish temple
with four towers and 27 copper domes looks as if it were plucked from the
Indian countryside, or at least from a big-budget movie set or a major
theme park. In much the same way as a trip to The Holy Land Experience,
the biblical-themed attraction near Universal Studios, takes visitors to
first-century Jerusalem, a tour of the new temple will take people to timeless
India.
This is no accident. The temple
was built with the help of two dozen artisans from the Tamil Nadu state
in southeast India. Inside and out, the architecture and intricate carvings
of Hindu deities and angels -- statues standing alone and exquisite reliefs
-- reflect a geographic and theological balance. (By coincidence, a local
painter and a printer working on materials for the dedication are Muslims,
more than 100 million of whom live in India.)
"The beauty is that it is going
to be a big amalgamation," says Dev Sharma, 65, of Longwood, chairman of
the temple's construction committee.
Because many of the estimated 7,000
Central Florida Hindus come from all parts of India, they worship different
manifestations of their faith's universal divinity.
"They are different incarnations,"
Sharma says.
These deities -- Ganesh, Vishnu,
Radha Krishna, Shiva Durga, Balaji, Ram Parivar and Navagraha -- are honored
in individual shrines inside the sanctuary.
"For convenience, we call him different
names," explains Aravind Pillai, 52, of Longwood, chairman of the society's
board of trustees. "In Hinduism, there is only one God."
Daniell compares the concept to
a single light shining through a prism, dividing into different rays.
In addition to being a point of
pride, the new temple is the latest benchmark in the growth of the immigrant
community in Central Florida. It follows the track of annual events drawing
thousands of people, such as India Fest, which takes place in March on
the society's 10-acre site in Casselberry, and the recently concluded South
Asian Film Festival at the Enzian Theater in Maitland. The Hindu University
of America, near Valencia College and Asbury Theological Seminary, continues
to expand.
Society officials say interest in
the temple has been strong, with 15 to 20 people per day asking for informal
tours. This past weekend, more than 200 dropped in. The society hopes that,
in addition to school and civic groups, some of the thousands of Hindus
who visit Orlando's tourist attractions from around the world will visit
the temple.
Because their ancestors did not
have to please Seminole County building inspectors, the Indian architects,
craftsmen and laborers who spent two years working on the structure had
to make some modifications to the thousands of years of traditions associated
with temple-building. So this temple has air conditioning and metal-and-glass
exterior doors, rather than entrances open to the breezes, and there are
restrooms just outside the sanctuary, as well as a small meditation center.
Leaders of the Hindu community have
high hopes for the weekend.
"Hopefully, people will learn something
when they come," says Mala Karkhanis, president of the society's executive
committee.
"We want people to come and see
what we are about," says Karkhanis, 47, of Oviedo, "because it is important
to realize that there are a lot of myths about Indian people. I'd like
my American friends to be exposed to the rich Indian culture and heritage.
I think most of them will be in awe."
