A Hindu temple, the San Marga Iraivan Temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva, is being built on the Kauai Island in the state of Hawaii, USA. It is located next to the River Wailua which is eight kilometres from Mount Waialeale. Of the 1.4 million residents of Hawaii, less than one per cent are Hindus, and on the Kauai Island, the number of Hindus may not even exceed 50 people. The Iraivan Temple is an all-granite, hand-carved structure, being built without power tools or electricity. This temple is maintained by the Saiva Siddhanta Temple, also known as Kauai Aadheenam and Kauai's Hindu Monastery. It is an all-male temple-monastery complex. The monks in this monastery study and practise Shaivism. Shaivism is a major tradition of Hinduism, where Lord Shiva is considered as the supreme being. The term 'Iraivan' means ‘He who is worshipped’. It is one of the oldest words for God in Tamil, a language spoken about 8,000 miles away in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Inspiration to build temple
Iraivan Temple was inspired by a vision of Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, born as Robert Hansen in January, 1927, was an American Hindu religious leader known as Gurudeva by his followers. In 1947, at the age of 20, he travelled to India and Sri Lanka. He adapted Hinduism at a very young age, and in 1949, he was initiated into sanyasa by the renowned siddha yogi and worshipper of Lord Shiva, Jnanaguru Yogaswami of Jaffna. He was the 162nd head of the Nandinatha Sampradaya's Kailasa Parampara and Guru at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery, which is a 382-acre temple-monastery complex on Hawaii's Garden Island.
When Sivaya Subramuniyaswami was in San Francisco in 1969, he felt a sacred pull of the Kauai property while on a retreat there. It is said that Iraivan Temple was inspired by Sivaya Subramuniyaswami's mystical vision of Lord Shiva seated on a large boulder on the grounds of Kauai Island. On February 15, 1975, Sivaya Subramuniyamswami saw Lord Shiva walking on the land where the temple is located at present. The plot of land was known as Pihanakalani, which means ‘the fullness of heaven’, to the natives of Hawaii. Cognizant of that connection, Subramuniyaswami decided to make sure that the new temple be aligned with native Hawaiian spirits.
Design and Construction
For the design and construction of the temple, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami had set three parameters, namely:
- The temple should be in traditional design according to the Saiva Agama—the tantric literature and scriptures of Hindu schools.
- It should be designed to last for 1,000 years.
- It should be entirely carved by hand without the use of any machinery.
The design for the temple was completed in the late 1980s. Two Indian swamis, Sri Sivaratnapuri Mahaswamigal and Sri Balagangadharanatha have been assisting with the project by providing 11 acres of land outside Bangalore, India. An entire village was created by the monks there, for the artisans for hand-building the temple over the last 33 years. Carving of more than 4,000 blocks of white granite started in the 1990s at the worksite. The completed blocks were then transported to the temple site of Kauai in 2001. The assembling of the shipped carvings then began under the direction of a master architect. Iraivan Temple would be a white granite edifice with gold-leafed domes. It has been modelled after millennia-old temples of southern India.
Iraivan Temple has no fans or air-conditioning and is illuminated only by oil lamps. Its architectural style has been inspired by the Chola Dynasty which had ruled parts of India and Sri Lanka for about 1,500 years, starting in 300 BCE.
The construction of the temple began in 1990 and has been continuing even after the death of its founder, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, in 2001. Paramacharya Sadasivanatha Palaniswami, who came into the Kauai community of Kappa in 1968, along with Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, who was his teacher, has been supervising the temple construction and tending to its gardens.
Placing of Lingam
The temple is still under construction and once it is completed, a 700-pound Spatika (crystal) Lingam which is 39-inch-tall would be housed in the sanctum sanctorum. It is made of a 50-million-year-old uncut quartz crystal which is believed to be the largest six-sided, single-pointed crystal ever found. This Shiva Lingam is considered to be especially sacred as it represents the element of ‘akasha’ or the space or sky. At present, the Spatika Lingam is placed in the Kadavul Temple, a Jaffna-style (Sri Lankan style) Hindu temple of Lord Shiva located in Kauai Island, in Hawaii. Kadavul Temple is dedicated to the cosmic dancer, or Nataraja, form of Lord Shiva.
Iraivan Temple is facing south and is being built according to vastu science. Vastu architecture is believed to create a space that would elevate the vibration of the individual to resonate with the vibration of the built space. The whole space of the temple has been defined in multiples and fractions of one unit, 11 feet and 7.25 inches. The structuring and the spacing of the pillars have been done in such a way that it would serve as energy points for the building.
Current Status
The construction of the main pavilion of the temple has been completed and other ancillary structures are being worked on. It would take another few years for the temple to be inaugurated with the performance of a maha Kumbhabhishekam—the traditional way of inauguration of a temple in Tamil Nadu.
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