HOUSTON, TEXAS, July 25, 2004: Kedar Thakkar took a two-month vacation from his desk job so he could get to work — carting stone, sweeping away construction debris and slogging through heat and rain. The 30-year-old software developer made the trade to help build a monument to his Hindu faith in Fort Bend County. “This is the one thing that is going to give me the chance to show my complete dedication,” Thakkar said, taking a break last week from work on the Brand Lane temple just outside Stafford. “When we build a temple outside — the more effort, the more dedication and the more work you put in — you are trying to build a temple inside your heart. With the effort you put in for God, God tries to make you pure.”



Thakkar is one of about 175 volunteers who came from as near as Sugar Land and as far as India to help construct the limestone and marble BAPS Shree Swaminarayan Mandir, a Hindu temple built by the Swaminarayan sect. The cast of thousands sang an ancient Hindu song describing God as the swami walked down a red carpet decorated with flower petals. During the 90-minute ceremony, the swami and his assistants symbolically cleansed the icons with a wooden stick and honey, and limb by limb called on God to inhabit them. The consecration was the highlight of the 14-day Festival of Inspirations that began with Pramukh Swami’s arrival Tuesday and will end Aug. 2.



On Sunday, more than 6,000 people packed into the temple and an adjacent building to witness the faith leader, His Divine Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj, consecrate the carved stone deities that will reside in the temple. Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami, publisher of Hinduism Today and HPI, attended as guest and reports the event was immensely inspiring.



“When you look at it, you feel like you are in India,” said 22-year-old Dhruval Amin of Spring, who helped prepare for the temple opening every day since completing her college exams in early May. “It is almost an out-of-world experience.” For followers of the faith, the intricately carved temple is a reminder of divine beauty. It will be used daily to offer prayers to God and to ask for blessings, said Jayesh Shelat, a computer professional and volunteer spokesman for the temple. “The mandir represents the body of God,” he said of the temple.



The 73-foot-tall temple was constructed according to requirements from ancient Hindu scriptures, Shelat said. About 3,000 craftsmen across India carved the temple out of Turkish limestone and Italian marble. The 11,500-square-foot covered open-air temple and its surrounding 25,620-square-foot deck was then shipped in pieces to Texas and assembled. Though at first it seems constructed of textured stone, a close look at the temple’s facade and columns reveals a dizzying interplay of countless carvings of deities, dancers, musicians, elephants, horses, flowers and geometric designs. Construction began in March, 2002, and finishing touches were made up to the last minute. Leaders of the organization said it cost about US$7 million so far to build the temple, and that most of the labor was donated. “If it is God’s house, it has to be beyond compare,” Shelat said. “When (devotees) come in and have (prayers) they can be totally absorbed and focused on spirituality.”



The spirituality of the Swaminarayan sect is inspired by the Lord Swaminarayan, a historical figure born in the late 18th century who is considered God incarnate by the faithful. The religious organization was founded in 1907 in the western Indian state of Gujarat, where many of the members of the Fort Bend mandir are from. Lord Swaminarayan spurred a line of five successors of gurus, who are considered “God realized saints,” but not God, Shelat said. Pramukh Swami Maharaj is the fifth guru in the line. For adherents of the faith, Pramukh Swami Maharaj serves as role model and reminder of the possibility of the divine in beings.



“I can’t explain it in words,” Pratiksha Patel, 25,said of seeing Pramukh Swami when he arrived Tuesday at the temple. “It’s just happiness. It is more happiness than chocolate cake. It is more happiness than I can think of. “The religion we all follow, he follows to a perfect T,” she added. “I strive to be like that.”



The Fort Bend County group got started in the 1970s with a handful of families gathering in homes, Shelat said. The Brand Lane assembly hall opened in 1988, and now about 250 to 300 families regularly attend Sunday meetings, he said. The mandir and the festivities are a point of honor for the growing Houston-area community. “It is a big event because the mandir itself is a place of worship and to have a traditional-style mandir is a great pride,” Shelat said. “It also helps the next generations so they can come there to learn about Indian culture and Indian values. It helps us showcase, if you will, the rich art and architecture that India possessed centuries ago.”

BALI, INDONESIA, July 23, 2004: Thousands of locals and foreign tourists will flock to the mountain resort town of Ubud this weekend for one of Bali’s largest royal cremations this century. After weeks of preparation, Hindu high priests will tomorrow fire an arrow into the heart of an ornate dragon to free the soul of Tjokorda Istri Niyang Muter, the sister of the last king of Ubud, who died last month aged 96. A crowd of more than 50,000 is expected to watch as the funeral procession then moves from the Ubud royal compound to a burial ground, where the body will be cremated atop a nine-tiered wooden burial tower, or bade. Overhead electricity and phone lines have been cut in Ubud to allow the 25-metre-high tower, decorated with funeral masks and carvings of nine mythical beasts, to move through the town. As well as the royal cremation, a slightly less grand bade has also been built to carry the body of another royal family member, while the people of Ubud have built more than 50 other smaller towers to cremate the bodies of commoners on the same day.



Tjokorda Istri Niyang Muter was the twin sister of the late Tjokorda Gede Agung Sukawati, Ubud’s last raja and the island’s great arts patron. In Balanese royal families the birth of kembar buncing - male and female twins - is considered an auspicious event bringing peace and prosperity to the island. Organizers said the cremation and huge crowds would be evidence of the strong affection Balinese still held for the royal family. “It will show how much local people still love the family and provides some continuity after some difficult years,” said a Ubud Community Board spokesman. The ceremony would involve a giant dragon effigy usually reserved for royal families of Bali and Lombok, he said.



During the ceremony a Hindu high priest will take a ceremonial bow and shoot the dragon in a symbolic act of releasing the soul from the coils of desire. “The naga banda [dragon] was constructed by I Gusti Ketut Sudara, the grandchild of the late I Gusti Nyoman Lempad, Ubud’s world-famous sculptor,” royal prince Tjokorda Raka Kerthyasa told the Jakarta Post. Preparations and purification for the cremation have been underway for several weeks, the body having been placed in the royal pavilion in Ubud and sacred texts drawn up by the high priest. The ceremony will begin at dawn when priests wake the souls of the dead to advise them of the coming cremation.

COLOMBO, SRI LANKA, July 23, 2004: Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has said all responsible for the July 1983 ethnic riots that sparked off a civil war in the country must apologize if the country is to move forward, Xinhua reports. “We should apologize to each other. There should be a public apology. It is only then that we can get the burden off our shoulders and take the country forward,” Kumaratunga was quoted Friday by the Daily News as saying while addressing a ceremony held in the central hilly city of Kandy.



To mark the 21st anniversary of the widespread ethnic riot between the country’s dominant Sinhalese and minority Tamils, the government has decided to pay compensation to the 937 victims of the violence. Kumaratunga, who is also the minister for relief, rehabilitation and reconciliation, will personally hand over compensation to 30 randomly selected recipients at a ceremony to be held at the President’s House to mark the anniversary of the ethnic riot. The government said all recipients who are resident in Sri Lanka will receive their compensation by the end of August and the government is in the process of contacting people now living abroad.



The government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels entered into a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire in February 2002 and both sides started direct peace talks seven months later. However, the LTTE pulled out of the talks in April last year after six rounds had been held. All efforts to revive the stalled peace talks have so far failed. More than 64,000 people have been killed in the past two decades of ethnic war between government troops and the guerrillas who wanted the setting up of an independent Tamil state in the country’s north and east.

RAIPUR, INDIA, July 23, 2004: The RSS, India’s largest social service organization, is reportedly reconsidering the rule that forbids pracharaks, those dedicating their life to work for the organization, from having familial ties. The rule effectively prevents pracharaks from getting married. The Sangh is worried because the recruitment level of swayamsevaks is falling. And the fact that a group of Mumbai-based psychologists has said that bachelorhood induces cynicism in pracharaks after they cross 50 has forced the organization to consider scrapping the family clause. Reports also say wives of pracharaks will be deployed in rural areas to work for the RSS.



The psychologists, who were hired by the RSS to study the behaviour of pracharaks, said they tended to become reclusive in mid-life and could not integrate with the mainstream. RSS leaders who met twice recently — in Raipur and Nagpur — reportedly discussed the issue and concluded that this was harming the organization. Sangh spokesperson Ram Madhav, however, denied reports that a dilution of the rule was on the cards.



Reports say the organization plans to tell its pracharaks to be more social. Some RSS leaders reportedly cited the example of the second RSS sarsanghchalak (leader), M.S. Golwalkar, who kept in touch with a wide range of people, including writers and scientists. They also spoke of Balasaheb Deoras, Golwalkar’s successor, who was an introvert but was socially visible. The leaders also mentioned M.G. Vaidya, who married after being a pracharak, and was not considered for the top job in the organization.



The RSS leadership is also considering a change of uniform. In May 2005, they may do away with the trademark khaki shorts reminiscent of a British World War I uniform in favor of an all-white outfit, which may consist of a shirt or T-shirt with trousers.