BERLIN, GERMANY, September 11, 2008: The 6,000 Hindus living in Germany’s capital city, after years of praying in a cellar, are moving forward with plans for not one but two spacious temples, both to be built in Neukoelln, a suburb of Berlin.
In February, the Sri Mayurapathy Murugan Temple Association announced plans for a temple to Lord Murugan, who is especially beloved by Hindus from South India and Sri Lanka. The temple will accommodate 120 worshippers and will have an 11-meter-high gopura, standing on a 744 sq m (8,000 sq ft) plot of land which the association is buying for 170,000 euros (US$260,000). The project is expected to cost around 600,000 euros (US$890,000) in all and will be funded by donations. Construction should be completed by the end of 2009.
Further along is the construction of the Sri Ganesh Hindu Temple of Berlin. Earlier this year, the temple committee held the ground-breaking ceremony for a planned five-temple complex featuring a Ganesha temple which will seat over 350, making it the second largest Hindu temple in Europe–surpassed only by the Shri Venkateswara temple near Birmingham, England. The local mayor, Heinz Buschkowsky, handed over a 73-year-lease for the site to the Sri Ganesh Hindu Temple committee on Monday. Construction work on the temple dedicated to the elephant-headed deity is due to begin on October 28 and is expected to be completed the following year. It was designed by an Indian temple architect, and the drawings have been vetted to make sure they conform to German building requirements. A 17-meter-high gopura, decorated with stone carvings imported from India, will dominate the entrance. The temple trustees say they have already amassed the 900,000 euros ($1.33 million) in donations needed for this complex.
The two groups are on very friendly terms. Their efforts will bring to three the number of Hindu temples in Germany after the one in Hamm, a city of 150,000 in the populous western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.