{"id":1791,"date":"2002-03-20T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2002-03-20T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2002\/03\/20\/2002-03-20-maha-ganapati-temple-in-arizona\/"},"modified":"2002-03-20T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2002-03-20T12:00:00","slug":"2002-03-20-maha-ganapati-temple-in-arizona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2002\/03\/20\/2002-03-20-maha-ganapati-temple-in-arizona\/","title":{"rendered":"Maha Ganapati Temple in Arizona"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.arizonarepublic.com\/chandler\/articles\/0316hindutemple16Z6.html\">GO TO SOURCE<\/A><\/P><br \/>\n<P><\/p>\n<p>MARICOPA, ARIZONA, March 16, 2002: Although the current building is a beige, modular structure, a 15-acre site in Maricopa will be the first place in Arizona where a traditional-looking Hindu temple will be built. The grand opening for the Maha Ganapati Temple of Arizona took place in February, and 500 devotees made the trip. Temple leaders have hired a full-time priest from India, Sri Raman Sastrigal. The turnout is a sign of the growth in the Indian community in Arizona. &#8220;God will give grace, and, therefore, this temple will grow and the community will grow,&#8221; the priest said through an interpreter. &#8220;The peace will grow. Everybody will be happy.&#8221; The site also will have a community center, but the temple will be built first. The community members are planning the design and raising money for the temple. They expect to finish raising the $500,000 cost of the temple in a year or so and will start construction then. &#8220;All the Hindus want the temple to look like the temples in India, to bring a good vibration,&#8221; said Dave Mahadeven, an engineer and Mesa resident who serves on the Maha Ganapati board of directors. He came to Arizona 19 years ago. &#8220;There was no temple at all in Arizona when I came. Now there are three.&#8221; The Valley has other Hindu temples, including one in Scottsdale, housed in a former church.<br \/>\n<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GO TO SOURCE MARICOPA, ARIZONA, March 16, 2002: Although the current building is a beige, modular structure, a 15-acre site,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}