Devotees look on to the Moorthi Abhishekam ritual of bathing the deities during part of the 5-day celebration at the Hindu Temple of Central Indiana, Sunday, June 7, 2015. The celebration unveiled the expansion of the temple which adds a worship hall including 17 shrines. The ceremonies consecrated the new space and blessed the stone sculpture deities installed in the temple. Nearly 5,000 people went to the Hindu Temple of Central Indiana on Sunday for the final day of an inauguration event for the temple’s $10 million expansion.
She is amazed to see the modest building at 3350 N. German Church Road on Indianapolis Far Eastside blossom into an iconic structure that pays homage to various holy shrines across India.
She is humbled by the thousands of residents of all faiths who have spent the better part of a week visiting the newly expanded structure and sharing in the celebration of its rebirth.
She is proud because the more than 10,000 Hindu families in Central Indiana now have a temple that truly communicates the Vedic Sanskrit phrase, “Truth is one, the wise call it by many names.”
“Many people think about Hinduism as many Gods, but it’s actually many experiences and many ways of relating to one God. One God who is the totality of all that is and all that can be, so ‘truth is one,’ ” Vasudevan explained. “That is a message for us when we go inside but also a message I think that we would like to share with the community here.
“We respect all faith traditions. We’re all moving toward the same expression of love, and we want this temple to be a place that promotes peace and understanding.”
Vasudevan was not alone, as her enthusiasm was shared by the nearly 5,000 people who went to the temple Sunday for the final day of “Maha Kumbhabhishekam,” a five-day inauguration event for the temple’s $10 million expansion.
The Hindu Temple of Central Indiana originally opened in 2006, providing a place of worship for devotees throughout the Midwest. Indiana now has other temples, including ones in Avon, Merrillville, Lafayette and Fort Wayne.
The expansion adds a worship hall that includes 17 shrines, and a skylight surrounded by four new carved towers.
Vasudevan, a volunteer who has been with the temple since the very beginning, said that in India, a pilgrimage involves traveling across the country to visit a number of shrines.
The expanded Hindu Temple of Central Indiana integrates familiar facets of many of those shrines into the design, essentially giving visitors the opportunity to do an entire pilgrimage on the Far Eastside.
“I cannot have imagined this … I cannot have imagined the number of people who are here,” an emotional Vasudevan said Sunday. “I am so moved by the fact that kids who graduated here from high school and college have come back for this because they grew up with this, so they’ve come back to see it. It’s quite extraordinary.”
From Wednesday to Sunday, ceremonies were held to consecrate the new space. Aided by cranes and scaffolding, priests on Sunday blessed the stone sculpture deities.
The thousands of people watching from the ground cheered and waved as a helicopter hovered above the temple, dropping flowers and holy water.
“It was a truly beautiful ceremony for a beautiful temple,” said Gautam Patel, a Northside resident who attended the event to see the temple for the first time. “I think this is something that we should be proud of. If you look around, you can see that this is something that is bringing the entire community together under God. We need to keep that motivation as we move forward.”