Krishna Brahmamdam gives kudos to his fellow
community members. Without them, he says, the Hindu Temple of Greater
Springfield wouldn’t exist.
After a year of planning, fundraising, and searching
for the perfect location, the Hindu community has found its home in the
former site of Judson Baptist Church, 1001 W. Walnut St., in Chatham. The
organization purchased the property on May 9, and since then its volunteers
have been hard at work, renovating the building’s interior and
readying it for the temple’s inauguration ceremonies, Aug. 4-7.
“We have all had the same vision and goal for a
long, long time,” says Brahmamdam, chairman of the interim governing
board. “Unless you have a good number of people with the same vision,
there is no way you can have this temple.”
The HTGS was incorporated as a not-for-profit
organization in April 2007 and welcomed Priest Sri Vasudev Ravuru from
India last October. The community soon began conducting its traditional pooja services in rented
space at the Indian Association House, on Peoria Road. As its population
increased to more than 500 members, Brahmamdam says, the HTGS decided that
it needed more space.
The new building, which sits on a 9.4-acre lot, will
serve as an interim home. Once funds are in order, the organization plans
to construct a permanent $1 million temple complete with stone statues of
its murthi, or
gods. It’ll be the closest temple to Springfield — others are
as far away as St. Louis, Peoria, and Chicago.
“This gives us a good start,” Brahmamdam
says. “We have a good amount of land, we have a building, we have a
priest, and we have very dedicated volunteers and members who really want
this project to be successful.”
The HTGS chose Chatham for its small-community
atmosphere, Brahmamdam says, and is thrilled by the support of Mayor Tom
Gray, the Chatham Village Board, and other village officials. Although
acceptance is a problem in some places, he adds, the HTGS has never
experienced that obstacle [see Manjula Batmanathan, “Keeping the
faith,” May 10, 2007].
Gray will join in the temple’s initial
inauguration ceremonies at 9 p.m. Monday. The mayor will preside over the
ribbon-cutting, and immediately afterward the Hindu community will complete
the ritual of bringing their utsav moorthies, 2-foot-tall god statues made of lead, copper, zinc,
silver, and gold, into the temple.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the HTGS will conduct the
sanctification of the utsav moorthies, which Brahmamdam explains as giving the idols divine
energy and life, and then will place them on their mandir, or sacred platform.
The final event and a highlight of the ceremonies,
Brahmamdam says, is a visit by Bhagwan Sri Sri Sri Viswayogi Viswamji to
the temple. At 7 p.m. next Thursday, the spiritual guru from India —
who, Brahmamdam says, has divine energy — will inaugurate the mandir and permit the HTGS to
conduct regular services.
The public is invited to all of the services. For
more information, visit www.springfieldtemple.org.
Contact Amanda Robert at arobert@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Jul 24-30, 2008.
