Source

WAILUA, KAUAI, February 7, 2004: New York Time’s reporter Michele Kayal spent two days visiting Kauai Aadheenam, home of HPI and Hinduism Today, to cover the all-granite Iraivan Temple now under construction here. Her report, available at “source” above, is excerpted below:



The barefoot man from Bangalore, India, wedged a woolly coconut husk underneath a 400-pound block of stone and began rocking it into place, chanting “aisha, aisha” to keep his rhythm with each little shove. His workmates marked the stone using a sliver of bamboo daubed with red oxide, checked their line with a builder’s square and a piece of string, and turned it back to the stone mover, who gave it two strategic taps with a hammer and a rough iron chisel before cleaving away the excess with a single decisive blow.



This looks like India, but it is the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where members of the Saiva Siddhanta Church are erecting a white granite temple to the Hindu God Siva that fulfills the vision of their guru and is intended to last 1,000 years. For this act of devotion, every single piece of stone – 1,600 tons in all – is being pulled from the earth by hand in India and carved into intricately detailed blocks using nothing but hammer and iron chisel. The pieces are then shipped 8,000 miles to the church’s headquarters on Kauai, where six Indian stonemasons, called silpis (pronounced SHIL-pees), and their supervising architect fit them together like mystical Lincoln Logs. When it is finished, the temple will measure roughly 90 by 150 feet and will stand 36 feet high from its foundation to the top of its gold-leafed capstone.



Carving began in India in 1990, and construction is expected to continue through at least 2010. The temple is being financed solely by donations, church officials said, with $6 million of the total $16 million required already raised from 8,000 people in 55 countries. For every dollar put toward construction, a dollar goes into a maintenance endowment. The partly finished San Marga Iraivan Temple sparkles like a diamond against the lush green backdrop of Mount Waialeale, presiding over a bend in the Wailua River.



The artisans – 70 of them in a village outside Bangalore – are focusing on the temple’s hall and the fantastic feats of carving the monks call the wonderments: lions cradling balls in their mouths that can be rolled but not removed; rare musical pillars that will play tones when struck; a bell and chain with moveable links.



“We consider this a holy place,” said Say Nagarajah, a young man of Sri Lankan origin who came from Sydney with his wife and stopped by to look at the building and worship at a small existing temple that is part of the monastery.

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