Source: www.staradvertiser.com
OAHU, HAWAII, USA, June 21, 2010: Papia Sengupta said she and her fellow members of the Lord of the Universe Society (LOTUS) are not going to dwell on matters beyond their control, but the tears on her cheeks yesterday seemed clear-enough indication that the loss of the group’s central object of worship, a shivalingam, was still fresh.
Members of the Hindu group had spent 22 years as adopted caretakers of the so-called Healing Stone of Wahiawa, a stone they saw as a shivalingam in which they discerned the presence of the god Shiva. In recent years, the group had worked in loose partnership with a group of Hawaiian nationalists who valued the stone’s historical significance as a kapu marker for the sacred area of Kaukonahua. But last week, the Hawaiian group removed the stone from the marble temple that LOTUS had built for its protection.
Tom Lenchenko, kahu of Kukaniloko, said the stone would eventually be repatriated to Kukaniloko, the venerated birthing site of Hawaiian alii where it had spent the early part of the last century.
Yesterday, LOTUS observed its regularly scheduled monthly service, its first since the stone was removed. “We are very sad, very depressed,” Sengupta said afterward. “Our religion tells us to be tolerant and reasonable. We are nonviolent people and we do not want to create conflict, so we must now decide what we do from here and not look to the past. It is very important for us to keep this community together.”
Sengupta said LOTUS erected the temple around the stone to protect it (it had previously been housed in a dilapidated shack) and to give people in the community an opportunity to worship it as they saw fit. “We never said it was our stone,” she said. “It was always available to anybody who has faith.” Originally, the Sawney family invested $60,000 to turn the shed into a white marble shrine, he said.
[HPI note: the following paragraphs are from an earlier report from the same newspaper.]
Kahu Elithe Kahn, one of the group of Hawaiians who helped to watch over the stone, said “We truly appreciate the care that (LOTUS) provided over the years, but this is a Hawaiian icon, not Hindu,” Kahn said. “Hopefully, they will be able to bring over one of their own gods or goddesses to shelter and worship to the full scope of their belief.”
According to Lenchanko, the stone — called Keanianileihuaokalani — was originally located in a stream bed in Kaukonahua gulch and served as a kapu marker for those passing from Waialua.
“The stone was never a healing stone,” Lenchanko said, “and what people did to it, although it wasn’t their intention, was disrespectful,” she said, pointing out that abhishekams are not part of Hawaiian culture and religion.
Elithe Kahn disagrees: “Each group is trying to respect (the stone) in our own way. We don’t want it to be a conflict. That was not our intention.”
For a through history of the series of events that culminated in the removal of the stone, click here.