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Matthews, North Carolina |
Like most Hindu
temples in the Southeast, this temple in metropolitan Charlotte, North
Carolina, is open daily, with a ritual, aarti, each evening.
This temple also has a larger gathering on Sunday afternoons that includes
classes for educating both children and adults. When I visited on
a Friday evening, a priest and two devotees were chanting, clapping, and
prostrating before the images during aarti. In the middle of the
octagonal portion of the complex, a shrine made of marble and dark wood
houses the images of Radha - Krishna, Lord Swaminarayan (the movement's
founder) and Shri Gunatitanand (the movement's second guru), each of which
is adorned with clothes and a flower garland. Four large pictures
of the four other gurus in the Swaminaryan succession are also adorned
with garlands in the shrine. On each end of the shrine are an image
of Ganesh and Hanuman. The priest serves the images in the shrine,
while the devotees remain behind a railing. To eliminate distractions,
the men and women are separated, with the men standing in the front.
The remainder of the complex provides an auditorium, classrooms, and a
dining area with kitchen.
Visit Swaminarayan Temples of North America website
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List of Temples
North Carolina section of the List of Temples
Please send me your comments and additions to this site
at sramey@email.unc.edu.
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permission.
Last updated by Steven Ramey
1 September 1999