BOTHELL, WASHINGTON, May 14, 2014 (The Republic): When yellow-robed priests pulled back the burgundy curtain of a shrine inside the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center in Bothell, more than a thousand people who had squeezed into the smoke-filled building let out tears and gasps of joy. It was the crowd’s first glimpse of not just the temple’s first formally consecrated statue, but the nation’s first formally consecrated Hindu temple shrine in the Pacific Northwest.
Indian craftsmen called shilpis, descended from generations of other temple craftsmen, had spent six months molding the statue’s shrine. The Deity itself was hand-sculpted in India out of black granite. Finally, after three days of rituals last weekend called Kumbabhishekam, the Deity Prasanna Venkateshwara was brought to life. Related to Vishnu, preserver of life in the universe, the Deity will play a key role in formal rituals performed at the shrine.
“This is a 27-year-old dream come true,” said Mani Vadari, chairman of the HTCC’s board, who first worshipped with other Hindus in church basements, rented spaces and homes when he came to the Seattle area in the 1980s. The group he worshipped with then consisted of fewer than 100 families. Today, that number has ballooned, largely due to an influx of Indian software engineers who have immigrated to the area. From 2000 to 2012, U.S. Census data show the Indian population in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties of Washington State nearly tripled from about 20,000 to 59,000.