India Today
July 15, 2002
Indians sculpt a Shiva temple
to ship to the Hawaiian islandsSun Shrine Island
By Stephen David
Bangalore, Karnataka
HAWAII HAS LONG BEEN A FAVOURITE GETAWAY for holidayers and romancers in the West. The picturesque destination in the Hawaiian islands with its swathes of luxuriant green set against the shimmering blue of the Pacific has provided the backdrop for many Hollywood blockbusters like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park and Honeymoon in Vegas. Now add one more exotica to the islands' attractions: a one-of-its-kind stone temple, which is being painstakingly built thousands of miles away.
For the moment Kauai is not where much of the temple action is. A clutch of some 70 sculptors in Mandanayakanahalli, a village near Bangalore in Karnataka, is busy chiseling away at grey granite boulders meant for the shrine. It is no mean task. After all, what they are working at is a hand-cut, all-stone Hindu temple to be erected in the Western Hemisphere. And the scale is gigantic in every respect: the structure weighs 1.45 million kg, costs $16 million (Rs 78.4 crore) and is taking well over a decade to be completed.
The brainchild of the late Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, an American convert to Hinduism, the Kauai project was conceived of in the 1970s. Encouraged by the response to his monastery in San Francisco, where he built the first Hindu shrine in 1957, Gurudeva spread his wings to Kauai and launched the grand San Marga Iraivan temple project in 1975.
There has been no looking back since. Two years after a giant six-sided quartz crystal-a sphatika Shivalingam was acquired by Gurudeva in 1987 to enshrine in the Chola-style temple, Chennai architect V. Ganapati Sthapati was roped in to plan the outer stone structure. Soon, money was raised from devotees across the globe and others who wanted to help build a Shiva temple. The brief was categorical: no rock-cutting machines, electric tools or hydraulic equipment could be used at any stage, be it quarrying or etching. The entire structure had to be hand-made. There was another condition: the workers had to put their heart into it as well. Skill, as far as Gurudeva was concerned, could be acquired by anyone-there would be no bar on caste or creed. All that mattered was purity of intent.
It was a tough call but there were many takers. Once it was decided that the grey granite available in Karnataka would be best suited for the temple, two seers from the South-Sri Balagangadharanathaswami of Karnataka and the Tiruchi Swamigal-jumped into the fray to initiate sculpting at an 11-acre facility in Mandanayakanahalli. Scouting for skillful workers was not a difficult task despite Gurudeva's stringent stipulations.
The system demands that the stone carvers, or shilpis as they are called, do not drink, smoke or indulge in other vices. Many of them live on the site with their families and personal discords are not taken lightly either. Seventy workers have been fired in the past 10 years for violating the code, but those who have stayed on are more than happy. Dedicated and disciplined, they say they are there by the "grace of God". Explains Lokesh, 29, who came to the site as a helper, but has now graduated to a shilpi: "Smoking beedis is quite common on sites but there is nothing of that sort here." Rehmatullah, a Muslim co-worker who has pledged himself to the project, has even given up eating meat. The structure is only 70 per cent complete and may take another five years but no one is complaining.
The day begins early with a prayer and by 7.30 am., the shilpis are ready for work. As the hours progress, it's only the tap-tapping of hammers and chisels-there are 60 identifiable varieties-that can be heard. There is no time, or the inclination, for gossip. The intricate designs involved in the ornate lion pillars and other sections of the temple are time consuming and call for utmost concentration. As Jiva Rajasankara from Malaysia, who is here as site manager, points out, it takes nearly three years for two men to carve one lion pillar from a 1 0tonne granite block. Small decorative tridents for the temple railings take almost 30 days. One wrong move could result in colossal damage.
Digital cameras and G-4 Apple Macintosh computers capture images of the workmanship from time to time which are then e-mailed to the headquarters at Kauai. Once approved, the masterpieces are shipped in containers. The long-distance transportation is adding heavily to project costs-Rs 5 lakh for every container-but the price hardly matters. What does is the prize: a mid-Pacific dream that would be a sculpted reality.
The Garden Island
May, 1995
First Hindu temple in Western
Hemisphere Will Be Above Wailua River
By PAUL C. CURTIS, Staff Writer
Gurudeva's vision becoming real through cash, stone work in India
KAUAI, WAILUA HOMESTEADS, KAUAI, USA - In some ways, Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (Gurudeva) was just another California visitor who fell in love with Kaua'i and decided to make it his home. There are some major differences, though:
While some dream of coming to Hawaii and Kaua'i, his first glimpses of Kaua'i came to him via a vision. He brought with him, at least in spirit, around 3 million followers of his type of Hindu beliefs. Instead of building a dream home, he built Saiva Siddhanta Church, Kauai's Hindu Monastery, on 50 acres of lush land including a waterfall and natural pool accessed along a rural road in Wailua Homesteads. He began publishing his religion's largest periodical publication, Hinduism Today, which reaches 100,000 readers. Gurudeva says he first saw the lush valley now owned by the church 'id a vision that included Lord Siva, whom followers believe abundantly grants blessings and, ultimately, supreme transformation.
Being carved entirely by hand now in Bangalore, India, are pieces of white granite which will be shipped to Kaua'i and turned eventually into the first-ever Hindu temple built in India and constructed in the western hemisphere. The massive San Marga Iraivan Temple, the concrete slab for which has already been poured (68 feet wide by 168 feet long) is the church's current center of attention. In the Hindu ancient scriptures are plans for building temples, some of which have been around for millennia themselves, explained Thondunatha, a guide during last Wednesday's visit to the church arranged by the Rotary Club of Poipu Beach. According to Thondunatha, Gurudeva came to Kaua'i to be away from the rest of the world, and because this is the place he saw in one of his visions.While over 75 percent of the congregation lives in Asia, India, Singapore and other countries, the monks travel there to do their mission work, Thondunatha explained.
"But we always come back to Kaua'i, because this is the place that we love," he said.
He estimates it will take 3.2 million pounds of granite to finish the temple. Nearly 100 carvers use hammers and chisels to do the work, and assistants by hand sharpen 3,000 chisels a day for the work, Thondunatha continued. One of the top pieces of the temple, an 11-ton work of art already on the Wailua property, took six years to complete. It takes two workers eight years to carve special pillars of the open-air temple which make distinct musical sounds when struck with mallets. On May 31, a ceremonial first stone will be laid at the temple, marking the start of construction of the temple that will overlook a section of the Wailua River which has a natural pool on church property. The church is negotiating with AMFAC to obtain an additional 400 ACRES of adjacent land, said Thondunatha.
The entire temple is being financed through public donations, and so far Hindus in 54 countries have contributed. What will cost the church $16 million for fabricating the white granite pieces in India would cost $160 million to accomplish in the United States, he said. While the temple won't be dedicated until $16 million is raised, already being set aside as an endowment to operate and maintain the temple in perpetuity is 50 cents of each dollar donated. Some $50,000 a month is donated now, Thondunatha noted. He estimates that between six and seven more years of carving in India will be required before the temple's pieces will be completed there.
The centerpiece of the temple will be a 700-pound, 39-inch-tall, uncut quartz crystal, believed to be the largest six-sided, single-pointed crystal ever found. Followers believe crystal grants spiritual wishes. It currently tests in a small temple on the Wailua grounds.
Some 4,000 stones will be shipped from India to complete the temple. Also included in the temple will be a time capsule to be opened 1,000 years from the temple's dedication date. The capsule will include, Thondunatha said, issues of The Garden Island, as well as instructions on how to build a new temple, as well as other information. "Hindus believe in reincarnation," he said. "I'm planning on coming back to see" the opening of the time capsule. He envisions one possible problem, though: Y3K.
The 50-acre grounds include enough space for the monks to grow most of the vegetables they eat. Five milk cows share space with 400 kinds of ginger, haleconia, ti leaves, and 36 varieties of bananas, including one from South America that is 60feet tall. About 60 Rotarians and guests made the trip up Kuamo'o road to the Church
Zento
Spring, 2004
A Pilgrimage
in Paradiseby Jon Letman
Huddling in the center of the open green and white canvas pavilion which flaps in morning wind, they are dressed in sarongs and silk pajamas, some with matted dread locks and thick beards like the ascetics that wander the Himalayas.
In from the rain walks a slender yogi (Hindu monk), swathed in yellow robes. The yogi's head is shaved and across his brow are three horizontal stripes of holy ash, signifying his devotion to God and his south Indian spiritual lineage, called Saiva Siddhanta, In the center of his forehead is a tillika -- a circle of sandal paste representing the "third eye."
One woman asks if they are considered pilgrims to which the yogi replies, "Surely you are, for you have prepared long to come here." This scene, however, takes place not in India, but on the Hawaiian island of Kauai where the world's only south Indian style Chola temple outside of the sub-continent is being built. Just upstream from the Fern Grotto, where Elvis's "Blue Hawaii" was filmed, twenty-one monks from six countries live quietly, engrossed in prayer and meditation, with a bit of gardening, desk top publishing and the occasional temple tour.
Kauai's Hindu Monastery was established in 1970 by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, affectionately known as Gurudeva and is steadily gaining recognition around the world, both as a beautiful place of worship and a bridge between East and West.
Guided tours, always conducted by a junior monk, are held several times a month attracting visitors as diverse as crystal healers, law students, local surfers, sari-clad Indian grandmothers and plump middle-aged tourists in garish Aloha shirts.
Following introductions, the yogi speaks briefly about Gurudeva, who was born in California in 1927. As a young man, Gurudeva studied dance and became the premier danseur in the San Francisco Ballet, but left America at the pinnacle of his career in 1946 to travel to India and later Sri Lanka.
After his own initiation by his satguru (teacher of truth), Gurudeva went on to help build 37 Hindu temples in places as far flung as Fiji, London, Anchorage, Sri Lanka and Denmark. Gurudeva also led pilgrimages and established the Himalayan Academy, as he fueled enthusiasm for Hinduism around the world until his death in 2001.
The discussion of Gurudeva leads to a basic introduction to Hinduism (see side bar) after which the yogi ushers the group to the Kadavul Temple where Nandi, a 32,000 pound black granite bull stands at the entrance, The imposing lava rock temple is built on the site of a 1929 plantation bungalow and sits adjacent to a traditional Japanese-style house built in the same era which today houses the monastery's offices and library.
From the temple, the group is lead past a sacred pool surrounded by ficus bonsais, coconut palms and breadfruit trees. A few steps away, all stop at a dramatic overlook which the yogi refers to as "our million dollar view." This spot, which the Hawaiians named Pihana Kalani"where heaven touches earth," is an arresting vantage point into the heart of Kauai. After heavy rains (almost daily), when the clouds part (almost never), over fifty waterfalls can be seen plummeting like strands of fine silk from the green peak of Mt. Waiale'ale, one of the wettest spots on earth.
The verdant hillside is overgrown with giant ape (ah-pay), Jurassic-sized philodendron, ferns, taro and ti plants which blanket the basin that drops down to a waterfall and pool the Hawaiians call Nani Kaua-"beautiful rain:' This is where Polynesian paradise meets the idyllic beauty of Shangri-la depicted in Indian religious postcards.
Here the yogi points to recently acquired abandoned sugar cane fields across the Wailua River, adding that the monks have planted 2,200 coconut palms along with native Hawaiian koa trees, milo, mahogany and monkey pod which are grown for their spiritual and cultural significance along with their uses as medicinal and fragrant trees.
As well-tended as any botanical garden, the temple grounds are a sensuous feast of tropical beauty with paths leading through a rainbow of hanging orchids, gingers, fruit trees, succulents, cacti and a world class collection of palms, bromeliads, heliconia and South Asian introductions like neem, camphor and sandalwood, Lily pads float in a lava rock pool and on a nearby pedestal, a pot bellied bronze Ganesh (the elephant headed god) holds an umbrella.
"Ganesh heard about all the rain we get in Wailua, so he brought his umbrella," jokes the yogi.
Walking through a grove of towering green-striped bamboo, the group is led beneath a rare blue jade vine in full bloom which hangs from branches like a fishing net laden with catch. As they approach the San Marga Iraivan Temple which is now under construction, the yogi explains how 3 million pounds of granite are being hand carved in south India and fit together one giant stone at a time on site in Wailua.
"These days, most temples are made of brick or concrete. People want it and they want it now," remarks the yogi, "but we told our workers, take your time."
First envisioned by Gurudeva in 1975, the building of the only granite Chola-style temple anywhere outside of India has been a gradual process which has included planting forests and orchards, building a village for the stone cutters and of course, raising funds. The 197-foot long concrete temple base alone costs almost $500,000, due to exacting engineering requirements.
One of the most remarkable features of the Iraivan temple is the enormous 700-pound, six-sided milk-white crystal which stands over three feet tall. The crystal, called a Shivalingam, literally "mark of Shiva" is an icon of Lord Shiva, who represents the absolute reality of the divine. This rare gem is the focal point of prayer and meditation in the sanctum sanctorum of the Kauai temple Discovered in Arkansas in 1975, this unique crystal is held in highest esteem not only because of its unprecedented size, but also because of its natural form, called svayambhu sphatika in Sanskrit, "self-created crystal," which means it was formed by nature and not carved by man.
Presently, the temple has already taken on a distinctive south Indian form with twelve of its forty pillars erected. Carved with images of Hindu gods, depictions of yoga and Hawaiian plants like pua kenikeni and taro, the pillars gracefully combine Hinduism and Hawaiiana in stone.
"Blasting with dynamite may cause small fractures inside the stone and so they are all hand cut," says the yogi, indicating the slabs of grey granite which are being meticulously chipped away by Indian stone cutters, contracted to work on the project in Kauai for two-year stints. Simultaneously, in a village outside of Bangalore, India, seventy-five stone masons are sculpting stones for Kauai's Hindu Temple with completion expected around 2009.
As the steady clink-clink-clink of the stone cutters fades behind them, the pilgrims tramp through a stand of sacred Himalayan rudraksha trees whose bubble gum blue seeds carpet the forest floor like marbles. These seeds are the source for the mala bead rosaries worn by Hindus world wide.
Continuing down to the river, the group passes through a grove of Mindanao gum trees (Eucalyptus degulpta) with their psychedelic camouflage bark pattern of lavender, lime, emerald, orange and brown. The muddy trail weaves beneath giant palm fronds, ferns and clumps of giant heliconia standing deep in the Hawaiian jungle.
With the yogi at their side, the pilgrims begin their ascent to a wooden meditation pavilion where they are left to contemplate their surroundings in silence. Relaxed, rested and ready to continue, the group follows the yogi past fan-like traveler's palms and giant tree ferns until they reach the upper temple complex where they again gather beneath the canvas pavilion to collect literature about the temple and Hinduism.
The rain has finally let up and the late morning sun now pierces the jungle canopy. Listening patiently, the yogi is showered with a deluge of questions.
'Why did Gurudeva chose Kauai for this temple" asks one,
"How can I center my life," still another.
And one pilgrim wants to know, "How come Ganesh has an elephant's head"
For some this is simply where the tour ends, for others it is where the journey begins.
The New York Times
Religion Journal
February 7, 2004
For Temple, 1,600 Tons, 8,000 Miles and 1,000 Years
By MICHELE KAYAL
WAILUA, Kauai - The barefoot man from Bangalore, India, wedged a woolly coconut husk underneath a 400-pound block of stone and began rocking it into place, chanting "aisha, aisha" to keep his rhythm with each little shove.
His workmates marked the stone using a sliver of bamboo daubed with red oxide, checked their line with a builder's square and a piece of string, and turned it back to the stone mover, who gave it two strategic taps with a hammer and a rough iron chisel before cleaving away the excess with a single decisive blow.
This looks like India, but it is the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where members of the Saiva Siddhanta Church are erecting a white granite temple to the Hindu god Siva that fulfills the vision of their guru and is intended to last 1,000 years.
For this act of devotion, every single piece of stone - 1,600 tons in all - is being pulled from the earth by hand in India and carved into intricately detailed blocks using nothing but hammer and iron chisel.
The pieces are then shipped 8,000 miles to the church's
headquarters on Kauai, where six Indian stonemasons, called silpis (pronounced SFIIL-pees), and their supervising architect fit them together like mystical Lincoln Logs. When it is finished, the temple will measure roughly 90 by 150 feet and will stand 36 feet high from its foundation to the top of its gold-leafed capstone.
"The monks thought it was a really wild idea to have a temple of this size," Sadhaka Haranandinatha, one of 21 monks in the monastery that serves as the church's headquarters and also head of the temple fund-raising project, said about the guru's idea for the temple. "But we took it as a directive from Siva."
Carving began in India in 1990, and construction is expected to continue through at least 2010. The temple is being financed solely by donations, church officials said, with $6 million of the total $16 million required already raised from 8,000 people in 55 countries. For every dollar put toward construction, a dollar goes into a maintenance endowment.
The partly finished San Marga Iraivan Temple sparkles like a diamond against the lush green backdrop of Mount Waialeale, presiding over a bend in the Wailua River.
On a recent day, the silpis were assembling one of the final courses, or layers, of the temple's great dome. The seven-ton capstone is scheduled to be raised in mid-April, finishing off the inner sanctum where the monks will place their most sacred object: a 700-pound naturally formed crystal that stands three feet tall and is interpreted as a mark of Lord Siva.
Then the artisans - 70 of them in a village outside Bangalore will focus on the temple's hall and the fantastic feats of carving the monks call the wonderments: lions cradling balls in their mouths that can be rolled but not removed; rare musical pillars that will play tones when struck; a bell and chain with moveable links.
"These are mystical codings to make a connection to the celestial world," said Sadhaka Jothinatha, a monk, who explained that every detail - lion faces, the small men carved into the temple's base, and its proportionality, all based on a measurement of 11 feet, 71/4 inches that is derived from the guru's astrology - are messages to the gods. Hundreds of temples serve the more than one million Hindus estimated to live in the United States today. But the San Marga Iraivan Temple may be one of the most elaborate.
Indian communities often bring artisans and priests from India to work with local contractors and have ritually important architectural elements carved in India, said Phillip B. Wagoner, an art history professor at Wesleyan University.
Kauai's Saiva Siddhanta Church, an organization within Hinduism's Saiva denomination of Siva worshipers, is not the product of a transported Indian community, but of ."a California-born guru, Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, who founded his monastery here in 1970. Five years later, the guru, who has since died, reported having a vision of Siva sitting on a rock on the monastery grounds, and decided to enshrine the vision's spiritual power with a grand millennium temple.
Some mystics and architects say that dynamite and machines destroy stone's ability to channel spiritual vibrations, so they were forbidden in the harvest and carving of the stone. Church officials said the guru also hoped that hand methods would help preserve what was then the dying art of stonecutter.
Some critics question the temple's religious significance, saying Hinduism is a matter of birth and inheritance, not of spirituality. Saiva Siddhanta's founding guru and most of the monastery's monks are Westerners who adopted Hinduism. "It's sort of white people's Hinduism," said Lee Siegel, a professor of Indian religions at the University of Hawaii. "It doesn't say much about India or India and the Diaspora. It says something about people of my generation, George Harrison Hindus. Most Indians that I ask about the Hindu temple on Kauai say it's very nice. But in a real Brahminical sense, I don't think it can be taken seriously."
But the stone carvers, most of whom are Hindus, and the Hindus who make up about two-thirds of what church officials estimate at 5,000 visitors a year, do not seem to mind.
"We consider this a holy place," said Say Nagarajah, a young man of Sri Lankan origin who came from Sydney with his wife and stopped by to look at the building and worship at a small existing temple that is part of the monastery.
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The Globe and Mail
Toronto, Canada
April 24, 2002
A Hindu temple in a Hawaiian paradise
Travelers seek not the god of sun but Siva and serenity at this hand-carved temple
BY BRIGID KELSO
I stumbled quite by accident upon a hand-carved stone Hindu temple -- on a Hawaiian island of all places.
In the parking lot of the Radisson Kauai, I overheard a group of tourists say they were off to the Kadavul Hindu Temple -- an attraction not listed among the hotel's pamphlets selling expensive helicopter rides, scuba excursions and tours of Waimea Canyon.
It was New Year's Day, and I was exhausted after being trapped with a bunch of New Age Californians in a pricey package including an evening of whale music, drum-beating and chanting followed by a sunrise baptismal ceremony at the ocean shore. The plan was to greet the New Year by symbolically flushing away any baggage from the previous 12 months. Disappointed, I felt that all I'd flushed away was $240. Even worse, when I returned to the hotel, all the good pastries had been eaten by those guests smart enough to skip the dawn ritual and hightail it straight to the continental breakfast.
But my spirits lifted at the hope that I was on the trail of something genuine; indeed the path led to a spiritual ceremony at the Kadavul Temple founded by another Californian. This time, it was free.
I followed the tourists up Kauai's palm-fringed east coast until their car turned at a small, bougainvillea-covered sign that I would have missed had I not been tailgating them so closely. Fragrant, white plumeria and a statue of the elephant-headed Hindu god, Lord Ganesh marked the entrance to the ashram. Monks in saffron robes smiled and chatted as they led us to a shallow, stone pool of floating lotus blossoms where we dipped our feet before entering the temple.
The temple was stunning. At its entrance were 15-centimeter-thick sandalwood doors flanked by expertly handcrafted stonework. Inside, softly lit shelves held , bronze statues of Lord Siva in 109 dance positions. But the temples most arresting feature was in front of the altar -- a 300-kilogram crystal Siva Lingam brought to the temple from Arkansas in 1987.
The Kadavul Temple was established in 1975 by a young Californian Hindu convert and former dancer for the San Francisco Ballet, who, in his 20s, travelled to Sri Lanka, where he acquired enlightenment and a Hindu name, Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Returning to the United States shortly afterward, Gurudeva, as his friends and followers called him, founded the Western world's first Hindu temple in San Francisco.
On a pilgrimage to Kauai in the early seventies, Gurudeva had a vision of Lord Siva that inspired him to build a temple and monastery on that site. Saivism is a branch of the religion practiced by at least half of the world's one billion Hindus. Gurudeva, who died last November (2001) at the age of 74, has been succeeded with a new guru, Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami.
The temple's backdrop is Mount Waialeale (the wettest place in the world, receiving more than 10 meters of precipitation annually) and the lush Wailua Valley, just kilometers from the beaches of South Pacific fame, and time-shares with some of the highest trading values in the world. The tropical site, known as Pihana-Kalani ("where heaven meets earth") is also spiritually significant to native born Hawaiians,
Although you can count on one hand the number of Hindu families on this island of 55,000, each year the temple draws thousands of Saivite Hindu devotees from across the world. While tourists traditionally make the pilgrimage to Hawaii to worship the gods of sun, surf and sand, these travelers come for serenity, solace and Lord Siva.
I expected only a tour of the temple, so was surprised when we were asked to participate in a puja -- Hindu ceremony -- an invitation never extended during my three-months traveling around India. We sat cross-legged on the temple floor, closed our eyes, then wrote prayers on squares of paper.
One of the 25 monks who live year-round in this 451-acre paradise collected the slips of paper and burned them in a small fire. Another smudged everyone's forehead with cool ashes. Like their guru, the monks are all English speaking. Most are Caucasian and from the United States; however, some come from traditionally Hindu countries. The community is supported largely by donations.
After the half-hour ceremony, a monk led us around a few of the botanical gardens' 25 lotus ponds, past varieties of orchids and a forest of multicolored Malaysian painted trees. A fluffy, Himalayan long-hair cat appeared, rubbing up against the monk's robes. The cat's great grandparents were brought to Hawaii from India and soon created generations of progeny whose job it is not only to control the rat population that invades the monastery from the surrounding jungles and sugar cane fields, but also to keep the young monks company when they first arrive.
As young as 18, the monks spend their days meditating, growing their own food and producing an internationally known glossy magazine, Hinduism Today. The magazine carries articles on such topics as how to convert from Christianity or Judaism to Hinduism.
Work is now under way for a second $16-million (U.S.) temple. For the past 10 years, stone carvers in a village outside Bangalore, India, have been hand-quarrying and carving granite into masterpieces, which are being shipped to Kauai to build the San Marga Iraivan Temple.
News Media Releases on Other Sites:
About The Iraivan Temple and San Marga Sanctuary
Honolulu Weekly December 24, 2003, cover story
