Iraivan Stone Hauling and Cleaning

The mighty Siddhidata Kulam are rounding up granite stones and moving them in place for the next batch of silpis who arrive in just a few weeks. The foundation of Iraivan is getting cleared for work, and that means moving some serious crate collections that have built up over the years. Luckily our monastic staff has forklifts, big-wheel trucks and gas-powered pressure washers to get the work done swiftly. Here's a small slideshow of their recent effort.

Chains and straps able to hoist thousands of pounds are loaded up and driven to the temple site

The monastery is able to perform the work of a commerical company thanks to this amazing gift from an island friend

Yoginathaswami leads the transport operation and as he says, \"take on the full karma of moving these dangerous and rare stones.\" Swami never liked the fact that one of his team members could reap the burden of dropping one of these massive stones, so he has taken up the responsibility ever since the first stones arrived.

These stones were placed near the side-entrance of the property to save trucking costs. Swami now takes them from here to the temple area where they can be installed, saving thousands of dollars in the process.

Arriving at the temple site, the stones can be unloaded and cleaned.

Another batch get loaded onto the big red truck

Our mobile generator, Little Yellow, is powered on and plugged into crate opening tools that become alive.

Lots of cutting, lots of cleaning

Our head cleaning engineer is none other then Taskforcer Danny Foster. These young men charge into the field with little experience and learn the tools of survival as they go. Step 1: Turn machine on.

Step 2: Pull trigger

Actually the stones can be a little sensitive to harsh conditions. This kind of operation comes with a great deal of training first.

Yogi Adinatha rips into the wooden crates

One has to both cut through the thick wood effectively and keep the blade from scratching the stone. Any small nick can be buffed out by the silpis, but we avoid that altogether by just being precise.

Big Red

Who needs headlights anyway?

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