Sri Siva Vishnu Temple - Past, Present And Future with Generational Transition

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1 Sri Siva Vishnu Temple - Past, Present And Future with Generational Transition Dr. Seetaramayya Nagula and Dr. Siva Subramanian Om Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah Sarve Santu Nir-Aamayaah Sarve Bhadraanni Pashyantu Maa Kashcid-Duhkha-Bhaag-Bhavet Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih Meaning: Om, May All become Happy, May All be Free from Illness. May All See what is Auspicious, May No one Suffer. Om Peace, Peace, Peace. Introduction As we celebrate the Jeernodharana Kumbhabhishekam (restoration & rejuvenation of a Temple every 12 years) in 2015, the past 30+ years of SSVT since the original Bala Alaya established in 1984, should be remembered as to why it was created: to understand, learn and practice Sanaatana Dharma (i.e. perpetual righteousness or eternal religion) by the present and future generations. Sri Siva Vishnu Temple was conceived under this basic tenet with a particular emphasis towards Abhedha Dharsanam Jnanam (realization of oneness is indeed real wisdom). The following sayings clearly shows that Siva and Vishnu are one and the same representing Brahman. It says, Siva is in Vishnu s form and Vishnu is in Siva s form and Siva s heart is in Vishnu and Vishnu s heart is in Siva! Sivaya Vishnurupaya Sivarupaya Vishnave Sivascha Hrudayam Vishnuhu, Vishnuscha Hrudayam Sivaha The Origins The temple s origins began in As four vested families gathered a few friends and conducted pujas in several schools like Walter Johnson Kennedy and Gaithersburg High Schools and other places. Devotees often reminisced of the temples that they used to visit in India and dreamt of a similar temple in the Washington DC area. At that time the visionaries were young and struggling to start their families and establish themselves. Building a temple felt like a distant and unattainable goal. Five years of the undying dream discussed at every puja resulted in the first concrete move in 1981 when the Sri Siva Vishnu Temple Trust was established. This attracted the interest of several others. We all worked relentlessly raising funds by visiting families in small groups in the basements of Hindu families in Virginia, Maryland and DC. Eventually the Trust bought four acres of land in 1983 with a small three-bedroom house in Lanham. MD. Agama Sastra and Sthapatya Veda recommend that one should first establish a smaller version of the planned Temple called Bala (young) Aalaya (temple). As soon as the place was purchased including a nice house, with the help of late Sri Manavala Iyengar, Punyaha Vachanam or purification of the house was done. Pictures of the intended Murthis in the future Temple were hung on the West wall facing East. Devotees used to sit in the living and dining rooms for special pujas and personal samskaras (rites). Sri Ganapati Sthapati already drew the plans for main Temple during his first visit to USA in So plans called for the vigrahas represented in the future Temple to be made in special wood (Aththi) and brought from India. They all arrived at Baltimore shipping yard. We had our first contact with the customs agents and all the formalities to be repeated many times in the coming years. The next step in establishing the Bala Aalaya is to consecrate the wood vigrahas. This temporary consecration is called Chara (movable) Prathishta. In order to celebrate Hindu functions required permission from the County like curb, gutter and walkway work. The first parking lot was made of compacted gravel accommodating approximately 15 to 20 cars! A small extension (called rectory) was constructed on the west side of house for the Bala Alaya vigrahas. Changes were done inside to get a mini hall out of the living and dining spaces! It allowed for about 3 to 4 dozen people to sit Indian style! Bala Aalaya consecration was done on June 24 th, 1984 with 55

2 Sri Siva Vishnu Temple - Past, Present And Future with Generational Transition Sri Siva Vishnu Temple the help of priests Sri Manavala Iyengar coming from Sri Venkateswara Temple, Pittsburgh after his retirement there and Sri Sastri from Varanasi who was covering for Sri Manavala Iyengar when he was in India. This involved doing all the different steps including Jalaadhi (water) Vasa (immersion), Ksheeraadhi (milk) Vasa, Pushpaadhi(flowers) Vasa etc., and opening the eyes (nayana unmeelanam) of the wooden vigrahas. Then SSVT started celebrating many of the Hindu festivals in the Bala Aalaya with increasing congregation size. We held many talks by Sat Gurus. The first Thyagaraja festival took place that year started by late Sri Soundararajan and the tradition is still being continued for the next 30+ years at SSVT. During the following five years many devotees attended many festivals, homams and individual functions at the SSVT Bala Alaya. The house that still stands served as the manager s house, home for the many Shilpis who came in the 90 s to build the current temple. Early struggles to raise funds As the Hindu community in the DC area started growing in early 80s, the original board of four trustees grew to 17 founder trustees. As if God wanted a larger area for His home, an adjacent 10 acres parcel became available in 1987, but the trustees wondered how they could raise funds to purchase that land. Here is proof that if God wants something He / She would arrange for it - a devotee who heard of our struggle came with a check for $10,000, the funds needed for the down payment! A newsletter was started to send information to the congregation. Then architect Mr. Zemaitis was engaged. His ancestors from Lithuania where many words are similar to Sanskrit words! He respected Sthapati s design and worked with him very well. We put in enormous time in the planning stage and then came applying to the County for permits and satisfying many of the codes. One question was interesting that there is no exit from the Garbhagraham because it is a fire hazard! Our architect and trustees addressed that question and discussed with the County plan reviewers and Fire Marshals pointing out that the ancient, religious structures associated with Temple building and also only the priest will be going in and out. Then in 1989 during early summer the groundbreaking ceremony (Bhoomi Puja) was held. In the presence of Sri Ganapati Sthapati, our own Sri Manavala lyenaar and an invited priest from Albany Sri Muthukumaraswamy Dikshitar conducted the ceremony. In the northeast corner of the future Temple 56 a deep pit was dug and bricks were placed with many other special articles. We had the good fortune of having Naadaswara Vidwan Sri Namagiripetttai Krishnan playing the Mangala Isai (music) like in any traditional Bhoomi Puja in India! The invited priest did an unique Ganapathi dance on the bricks with the Nadaswaram playing. In order to be able to consider engaging a contractor and to get a construction loan there has to be some equity. At that rime 8 trustees pledged their homes and got equity loans to be deposited in the SSVT bank account! The next challenge was to raise S1.5 million, the estimated cost of construction. Again it was divine intervention that Perpetual Savings & Loan announced a policy of lending for construction of churches and places of worship. Incredibly the bank approved a loan of S1.5 million dollars without any personal guarantee! Construction and consecration SSVT engaged Donahue & Company as contractor and the building of the main Temple started in right earnest in Donahue general contractors built a 90 x 90 sq. ft. structure. Under the able guidance of Sri Ganapati Sthapati, a team of master artisans came from Mamallaparum, India and transformed the American cinder block structure into an elegant authentic Hindu temple using Chola. Pallava. Hoyasala and South Canara architectural styles. The idols were made in Mamallaparum (by Sri Perumal) and transported to SSVT. In 1990 with substantial portion of the Temple already built, preliminary consecration of Lord Ganapathi, Lord Hanuman and Goddess Durga was performed. Sri Bhairava Murthy of New York Temple served as the principal Priest with all other invited priests along with our own priests. So these three deities were established with a belief that they bless and protect the new sprouting organization Sri Siva Vishnu Temple and the devotees. With further construction and some Indianization led by Sthala (Resident) Sthapati Sri Selvanathan, in 1991 the Temple was ready for consecration. The first Sthira (firm) Prathishta (Consecration) was performed for Lords Siva, Ganapathi, Subramanya and Goddesses Parvathi. Durga and Sharada along with Navagraha by Sri Sri Sambamurthi Sivachariar presiding over the Kumbhabhishekam ceremony. Large number of devotees came to attend the ceremony conducted over a 5-day period. lndianization continued and the Temple was taking shape and began to look like the ones we have seen in India. In the summer of 1992, Sri Sri Savvasachi Swamigal, who

3 Sri Siva Vishnu Temple Sri Siva Vishnu Temple - Past, Present And Future with Generational Transition led the consecration ceremonies, performed the second Kumbhabhishekam. Lord Anantha Padmanabha Swami, for the first time outside India, along with Goddess Mahalakshmi & Goddess Andal, Sri Krishna from Udupi and Sri Bhadrachala Rama, Sita, Lakshmana along with Hanuman previously established, were consecrated. The Temple was now fully functional and many priests, managers and volunteers served our increasing congregation size. There was overwhelming support to bring Lord Venkataswara to SSVT, but it could not be physically accommodated in the original 90 x 90 structure as per the Agama principles. Hence an extension was built on the North side of then existing temple and Lord Venkateswara shrine was consecrated with Kumbhabhishekam in To meet the growing desires by devotees Lord Ayyappa shrine was conceived and a new extension on the South side of the original temple was built and Kumbhabhishekam was celebrated in 1995 in Tantrik Agama style. We dearly call this shrine, as national shrine for Ayyappa as there was no other Ayyappa shrine with 18 consecrated steps anywhere else in North America at that time. That concluded the installation of all major deities at SSVT. Subsequently Lords Sudarshana and Yoga Nrusimha were consecrated a few years later in the Mandapam area of Sri Balaji Shirne Growth of congregation and meeting community needs Within the past 25 years, the Washington area saw an exponential growth of the Hindu community, with thousands of devotees coming to the temple to worship their Ishta devatas (preferred, personal deity). However according to religious texts, the temple would remain incomplete without a Rajagopuram: to draw upon an allusion, if the temple represents the human body, the sanctum sanctorum represents the head and the Rajagopuram represents the feet. Without the Rajagopuram, the temple would be without the feet! As a result, the need was felt to build the Rajagopuram to complete the temple structure. Through God s grace and the generosity of devotees and untiring efforts of volunteers the Rajagopuram was built and consecrated at a Mahakumbhabhishekam in the summer of This project also created the new dining hall and the Vasanthamantapam, both used to the fullest extent every weekend. Aakar was created to facilitate children s participation in religious and community activities. Dedicated teachers volunteer their time to teach slokas and religious themes to children. Children and young adults take part in preparing and packing lunches for deliver to homeless shelters thus showing our desire to serve the larger community. A need for an educational wing for SSVT was felt and a major room was partitioned for discourses in religious and spiritual topics. Every weekend, various learned speakers share their knowledge with devotees. The multi-purpose hall serves as both a wedding hall and an auditorium for cultural events. From an aesthetic point of view, the temple structure is absolutely majestic. The Rajagopuram, with Vasanthamantapam give an awe-inspiring appearance. The Raiagopuram is a unique architectural landmark with its seven-tiered tower. The Unity of Saiva and Vaishnava traditions is depicted by the Sankara Narayana (Siva & Vishnu) figure on the top tier and Vrushabha Kunjaram (bull & elephant) in the first tier. The MahaSadasiva on the South side and Mahasudharshana on the North side of the tower again show the unity of Siva and Vishnu. SSVT is conducting one major religious function every year with Bhagavad Gita Jnana Yajnam in 2006, Lord Subrahmanyna festival in 2007 and Rama Koti Japa Mahotsavam in 2008, Sri Devi Mahotsavam in 2011, Sri Venkateswara Mahotsavam in 2012 to mention a few. In 2013, SSVT celebrated the Ganesha Mahotsavam. A 6+ feet tall Ganesha Vigraham was taken in a procession during the last day and taken to the nearby lake (with county permission) and had the Visarjanam/Samyojanam (allowing it to sink in water) ceremony done witnessed by several hundred devotees again a first in USA. We have been fortunate to be part of the temple evolution from the beginning. As we look back at the past 30+ years, we can t but be humbled and awe struck at the remarkable growth the temple has gone through: SSVT has gone from a one priest setup to ten+ erudite resident priests with diverse expertise in Saiva and Pancharatra Agamas, Vaidhikas, Maadwa and Tantric traditions. We are all absolutely fortunate to be blessed with such qualified, accomplished and dedicated priests. These priests now meet the growing needs to perform religious services at the temple as well as Hindu samskaras at devotees homes. With ever growing devotee population, parking at the Temple became a major problem especially during weekends and special puja days. Devotees used to clog neighborhood streets. It took 5+ years to obtain zoning permit to build a new parking lot on the Southside of the Temple. The parking lot became a reality in 2012 accommodating an additional 180 parking spaces. This indeed eased the parking congestion at our Temple. 57

4 Sri Siva Vishnu Temple - Past, Present And Future with Generational Transition Sri Siva Vishnu Temple Generational transition to the future: Opportunities and challenges While the main temple construction is complete, there were still several more challenges to address construction of priest and staff quarters, construction of a community center, developing a center for Hindu religious studies etc. By acquiring the neighboring homes, priests and their families are now being accommodated. We are confident that all of these will be achieved in good time with the continued support of the devotees. An important goal of SSVT is to create a ROBUST endowment for our Temple. SSVT hardly has any significant money in this fund but MANY OF OUR MAJOR SISTER TEMPLES in USA HAVE MORE THEN 10 MILLIONS IN THEIR RESPECTIVE ENDOWMENTS. It is critical that for servicing future generation of devotees a corpus of funds should be secured now. The interest from that endowment should address the operational costs of the future course of the Temple. This will allow the Temple to serve the future generations of Hindus regardless of their ability to support the Temple. There is a program called Legator which gives an opportunity to the present devotees to become the patrons of future generations by donating to the Endowment program NOW. With Jeernodharana Kumbhabhishekam, there is a chance for every one of the devotees to become a FOUNDING DONOR of SSVT! Please check the SSVT.org for more information. The first generation immigrants from India who were raised in traditions where temples played a central role initiated the SSVT s concept. Their determination helped them overcome, what sometimes looked like, insurmountable difficulties leading to the creation of SSVT as we see today. Children of the first generation the second generation, mostly born and brought up here, have followed their parents to the temple on frequent visits and observed customs as required by their parents. At the same time this second generation is exposed to the general American society and acquired some good traits including independent thinking, asking questions to elicit rational explanations before accepting traditions blindly, and demanding a businesslike processes in managing institutions such as the SSVT. This generation will be fully in-charge of running this great institution in the coming decades and beyond. Realizing that it is important to involve them at various levels of running the temple including policy making bodies such as the Board of Trustees, Governing Board, General Council attempts are being made to induct some of this generation (under 40 years age and born here) into the various committees, BOT, Governing Board etc. This transition has brought out new challenges. As may be imagined people in this age group tend to have young children, which limits their ability to spend all, or substantially many, weekends in meetings and temple related activities, as has been done by the first generation who needed to put their full energies in facing the many problems natural to creating this great institution from ground up. This has created problems in attracting and retaining the second-generation representatives to stay committed to the committees and other parts of the SSVT organization. We need to develop more streamlined policies and procedures that would limit the time commitments of those willing to serve the temple, especially in the second generation. SSVT organization should promote the use of video conferencing, social media like Face time, Skype, Whatsapp etc., to maximize communication and minimize time off home. Third generation and beyond, that is children born to our children here, will bring a whole new set of challenges. For example, we need to communicate our religion, customs and traditions to this generation in a new way. We should develop short, pithy explanations of various day to day questions as FAQs and put them in SSVT website, You tube, Twitter, Apple watch and many other social media where they will readily access and get the knowledge about Hinduism and Temple worship. Education should play a major role. We strongly recommend that the Hindu community should start regular schools like Catholic and Jewish schools. There, the children are taught all the regular subjects but also given exposure to the Hindu scriptures and philosophy. It cannot be taken for granted that this generation will accept our way of life implicitly like we did because of the way we were raised in traditional families whose lives revolved around temples and festivals etc., practiced in India for millennia. The second generation followed our way of life, with lesser fervor than us, mostly because of our own behaviors and our insistence that they do so. Their ability to bring along their children the third generation, we must understand will be less intense and more challenging. It is not just we Hindus that face this problem. Many churches and synagogues too witness lesser and lesser commitment of current youth to their religious institutions and traditions. They make many efforts focused on attracting and retaining their youth through Youth Camps, Volunteer Corps, Religious Retreats, Religious Libraries, and Sunday Schools etc. SSVT has to design and institute several similar efforts to attract and involve Hindu youth to help them understand our way of life and commit to it on their own, not just because 58

5 Sri Siva Vishnu Temple Sri Siva Vishnu Temple - Past, Present And Future with Generational Transition their parents insist on such adherence. It is becoming clear that the second and third generation will be more involved in service related projects through the Temples to the communities around the neighborhood as well as helping in Homeless Kitchen, organizations like Big brothers and Big sisters, other new efforts etc. This would allow them to come to the Temples and participate in religious related activities as well as in running the temples. Many youth come for the Sandwich for the homeless program that SSVT is running for many years. We should be involved in and get them to participate in those service (SEVA) activities, which they will gladly do and can be proud of their heritage. We can then, present in small doses to the youth about Hindu scriptures, stories, and slokaas with meaning and languages and arts. The youth need to be involved in the running of this organization by allocating functions and trusting them to deliver. The upcoming Build Your Temples with 3 D printers, Build your Deities, being arranged with Jeernodharana Kumbhabhihekam are some good examples. They are our future leaders in the future society and here in our SSVT Temple. Along these lines we suggested in 2009 and we do so again in 2015 that a committee be formed mostly with members drawn from second and third generation (born here) to investigate and come up with practical recommendations on what SSVT needs to do to attract, retain and promote Hindu way of life in our future generations. May the Blessings of Sri Siva and Sri Vishnu And their consorts be showered upon all the devotees! Dr. Seetaramayya Nagula is a longtime devotee,volunteer and one of the founder trustees of SSVT. In addition to the Temple activities he is passionate about social and educational activities in the community and serves as board member in HACSI. Dr. Siva Subramanian is one of the key founder members of SSVT. He is a practicing Academic Neonatologist. He is active at various Inter- Faith, Religious groups, and Seva & Temple Associations in USA. 59