LENASIA, SOUTH AFRICA, September 5, 2004: The largest Swaminarayan Hindi Mission temple to be built in SA has taken more than 18 months to complete and will open next week. Nine hand-carved doors made of Burmese teak, a solid cherry-wood throne and 12 containers of imported decorative artwork have been used to decorate the US$1.2 million Hindu temple in Lenasia. This month’s inauguration of the Swaminarayan Hindi Mission temple is the culmination of four years of planning and fundraising. Rajasthani artisans and craftsmen have taken more than 18 months to embellish the temple’s pillars, columns and beams. The temple, one of 500 dotted around the world, will be the third and largest of its kind in South Africa.



Described by devotees as a “rare gift in a modern age,” it will accommodate 400 people. A hall attached to the temple will seat 600. “Plans were drawn up in Amdawad in Gujarat by His Divine Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj, the head of our organization in India,” said project co-coordinator and trustee, Niranjan Purbhoo. “His Holiness said a temple was needed in Lenasia because of the huge Hindu population.” Purbhoo said Swaminarayan temples served as ideal examples of spiritualism coupled with traditional art and architecture. As with other Swaminarayan temples, including one in London which has become a major tourist attraction, all essential components were imported from India.



A total of 12 containers, crammed with decorative material ranging from glass-reinforced concrete to fibre-reinforced polyester, were shipped from India. Huka Horia, 40, a craftsman from Rajasthan, this week added the finishing touches to the imported hand-carved doors and the large Sihasen (throne). Horia has worked on the majority of the Mission’s temples throughout the world, including those in Auckland, New Zealand and Kenya. Mukesh Patel, a trustee, said generous sponsors and the Lenasia community had rallied behind the project. “We’ve even had students donating their monthly allowances,” he said. Ashwin Trikamjee, president of the SA Hindu Maha Sabha (an umbrella body of SA Hindu organizations), said the temple was an “outstanding” piece of architecture and was a “landmark” in South Africa. “The movement has shown commitment not just to Hinduism and its disciplines but to bringing to life dreams such as these,” he said.

TUTICORIN, INDIA, September 4, 2004: Tiruchendur is all set to get improved infrastructure facilities, including a state-of-the-art bus terminus at a cost of US$682,000, with financial assistance from the Tamil Nadu Urban Finance Infrastructure Development Corporation, which has come forward to finance the implementation of various developmental schemes in the district to the tune of $2.5 million. In Tiruchendur, all Car Streets through which the cars of Lord Subramaniya Swamy (Murugan) are drawn would be given a facelift at a cost of $45,000 and an ultra-modern market with all facilities established on an outlay of $380,000. “The age-old bus-stand will be redesigned in the model of the new bus-stand at Vaeinthankulam in Tirunelveli with all commuter friendly facilities,” Mr. Radhakrishnan said. The roads at Arumuganeri, Udangudi, Kayalpattinam and Kayathaar would be improved and public toilets constructed at Arumuganeri and Kayathaar. Two community halls would be constructed at Udangudi and Kaayalpattinam for the benefit of the public. In Tuticorin, an electric crematorium would be set up in the burial ground opposite the VOC College.

CHENNAI, INDIA, September 4, 2004: Sanskrit manuscripts should be collected, microfilmed and digitized for posterity. The country had lost valuable manuscripts and steps should be taken at least to preserve the scripts available in vidyapeeths and mutts (academic centers and monasteries) said speakers at the diamond jubilee celebrations of the Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute here today. Kapila Vatsyayan, chairperson, India International Centre, New Delhi, in her presidential address, attributed a steady decline in the number of students studying Sanskrit to a sustained campaign against the language over the years. Sanskrit, she said, was not an ordinary language and it was the culture and civilization of the country. Hence it was the duty of everyone to preserve the language, she added. V.R. Panchamukhi, Chancellor, Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, Tirupati, appealed to the Centre to set up another Sanskrit Commission as the earlier one failed to complete many assigned tasks. He was for a national, regional and local-level interaction among Sanskrit vidyapeeths to discuss the problems confronting them and steps to solve them. Justice B. N. Srikrishna, Supreme Court judge, said there was immense scope for research on how to preserve the Vedas.

THIRUVANANTHAPUAM, INDIA, September 2, 2004: A spectacular boat pageantry along the six-km stretch of Karamana river in Kerala capital today provided a feast for eyes of thousands, including a good number of foreigners. Coinciding with the Onam week celebrations, the annual mega event, which the organizers claimed was one of the biggest in the world, was flagged off from Karamana river. Scores of catamarans, snake and country boats took part in the event. The organizers were making every effort to ensure that the boat festival figures in the Guinness Book of World Records. Photographs would be sent to their authorities to stake claim as the biggest annual event, local Jalolsavam Committee Chairman Thiruvallam Bhasi said. The present biggest one in the world was being held in the Philippines along a 3.5-km stretch. The Jalolsavan, the only major water festival here, attracted a huge crowd till the finishing point at Thiruvallam where the country’s only temple to Lord Parasurama is located.