SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, February 2, 2004: Nearly 5,000 Hindus from around the world participated in a ceremony to bless the newly-built rajagopurams, or towers, of the Sri Venkateswara Temple at Helensburgh, Australia, yesterday. The complex is the largest Hindu temple in the southern hemisphere. Nat Iyer, a founding member of the Sri Venkateswara Temple Association, said the three towers symbolize the feet of Hindu Gods and allows devotees to pray from outside the complex. The project began in 1979, when the then Wollongong mayor Frank Arkell said: “I will allow you to build this temple only if you build it according to the Agama Sastras,” Mr Iyer said. According to the Agama Sastras, which contain the rules for building temples, the temple ideally had to be built on virgin land, near a forest, on an island and near water. The temple, which is close to the Royal National Park, circled by roads and only two kilometers from the Pacific Ocean, fulfils all the requirements. It is, Mr Iyer says, “truly a blessed site.”
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