SURENDRA ULLAL
CHICAGO: The Ground-breaking ceremony of 8,000 square feet Sri Ganesh Mandir in Columbus, Indiana, complete with ancient Hindu rituals to be conducted by seven priests, will be held August 3.
This upcoming Hindu temple on a two-acre plot is planned to accommodate about 700 devotees on Hindu festivals and other special celebrations and ceremonies. It will include sanctuary with idols of deities, a stage and open area for special events and performances, and a kitchen. The temple is proposed to be completed by next spring, reports suggest.
Besides a worship center, it will also reportedly function as Hindu community center catering to the recreational and social needs of the community. It will also host classes for Indian classical music, dance, and languages and undertake various charitable activities.
The six-hour long ground-breaking ceremony will include Bhumi Puja, Maha Ganapathi Homa Yagnam, Havan, Arati and serving of free prasad lunch.
Existing Hindu Society of Southern Indiana (HSSI) temple in Columbus, inaugurated in 2015, opens daily. Besides worship services, it also conducts Bhagavad Gita lessons, Balavihar classes, and Gurukul. Trustees include Anuja Mazgaonkar, Mandar Deo, Prasad Kondapi, Srikanth Padmanabhan, Vasu Iyer, and Vijayagopal Subramaniam. The mission of HSSI, founded in 2010, includes promoting “understanding and practice of Hindu faith”.
Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, welcomed the setting up of the new temple in Columbus.
Hinduism, the oldest and third largest religion of the world, has about 1.1 billion adherents. There are about three million Hindus in the US. In Hinduism, Lord Ganesh is worshipped as god of wisdom and remover of obstacles and is invoked before the beginning of any major undertaking.
