BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Hindus in Alabama celebrated the birth of Krishna on Sunday with elaborate services including dramas depicting stories about Hindu spiritual leaders.
Krishna is considered the eighth incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu.
At the BAPS Hindu Temple in Roebuck on Sunday night, devotees listened to sermons in their native language of Gujarati and watched skits by performers from Memphis.
BAPS is an abbreviation for Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, a popular sect of Hinduism. The BAPS mindar, or temple, in Roebuck is dedicated to reverence for Lord Swaminarayan, who lived from 1781 to 1820 and is considered by members to have been an incarnation of the supreme deity.
BAPS is considered by other Hindus to be a rather new sect, but Hindus pride themselves on religious tolerance and willingness to recognize other gods. Shrines to other traditional Hindu gods are included in a wooden throne featuring more than a dozen gods and gurus.
“Every one of our gods, we have a big celebration,” said Kush Patel, 14, a freshman at Pell City High School. Patel said he wears his tilak, a red dot on his forehead, to school as a symbol of his faith. “The red dot is us bowing to our god; we are bowing down at our god’s feet,” he said. Classmates and teachers often ask him about his faith. “Some misunderstand,” he said. “Some are nice.”
The pictures of revered gurus along the altar include Pramukh Swami Maharaj, the worldwide spiritual leader of BAPS. Pramukh Swami, who has visited Birmingham several times, travels the world meeting with spiritual leaders and organizing charitable efforts to stop drug abuse and help victims of drought, floods and famine. His efforts are recounted in announcements during worship time at the temple each Sunday afternoon. Worship also includes singing with traditional instruments; a ceremony of lights at the throne using a silver plate with candles made from cotton balls dipped in butter; and discourses on the scriptures, especially the Vachnamrutum, a work that contains the teachings of Lord Swaminarayan in the form of 251 sermons dutifully recorded by five saints, or monks, who accompanied him at all times. The sermons each address a topic, such as promoting vegetarianism or cautioning about materialism.The devotees also respect other traditional Hindu scriptures, such as the Bhagavad Gita, in which Lord Krishna and the Pandava warrior Arjuna discuss the meaning and nature of existence.
“The almighty God is one,” Pramukh Swami has said in an interview with the Birmingham News. “For others, he comes on this earth in different forms.”
The swami answers letters seeking advice in spiritual and business matters and settles disagreements on interpretation of scriptures.
Pramukh Swami preaches that personal improvement comes through honesty, nonviolence and worship of God, along with abstinence from alcohol, drugs, tobacco, animal flesh and sex, except for married people, who must remain faithful to their partners. B.A. Patel, a member of the Roebuck temple, said that the temple draws more than 200 people for weekly worship. The devotees abstain from tobacco and alcohol. They are also vegetarians. On special holidays, like Sunday’s celebration, as many as 400 people attend.
The Roebuck temple opened in 1997. There is also a Hindu Temple and Cultural Center of Birmingham, located in Pelham, which opened in 1998.
Most BAPS members are from Gujurat, a state in western India, and their most common last name is Patel. Nearly all the members of the BAPS temple have the last name Patel.
Members organize charitable efforts and perform good works such as taking part in blood donation.
The BAPS group had been worshiping in homes around Birmingham since 1980.
The statues require a priest who lives at the temple and conducts daily rituals that involve caring for the statues, which are treated as the actual presence of the gods. The ceremonies involve ceremonially waking, “feeding” – by offering foods – and bathing the gods.