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The Hindu Bhavan
is the temple and community center for the Hindu Society of North Carolina.
Hundreds of families from central North Carolina attend special religious
festivals and cultural events at the Bhavan. The community has grown
so large that they are currently building an annex to provide a larger
meeting area on this property. The temple will remain in the current
building. In addition to special events, the temple is open every
morning and evening. An early evening last summer, I sat in the temple
for over an hour quietly watching the activities there. Several people
came and approached the images there, which include Radha-Krishna, Shiva,
Durga, Ganesh, Hanuman, Mahavir Jain, Venkateswara, and several others.
One person, for example, lit several sticks of incense, waved them before
the image of Hanuman, and sat in quiet meditation for about 5 minutes,
then she left. Another person rang one of the bells in front of the
images, prostrated herself before them, then went to another portion of
the large temple area to prepare for a yogic exercises group. Another
person entered, gazed at each image in turn, placed a dollar bill in the
offering safe, and then circumambulated the image area (using a hallway
that circles behind the images) for at least 15 minutes. Meanwhile,
the people who came for the yogic exercises group began their group exercises.
In addition to these individual devotional practices, the Bhavan does schedule
a regular aarti service each morning and evening, but I was not
able to stay long enough to observe that.
Return to:
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.
All images are copyrighted and can be used only with
permission.
Last updated by Steven Ramey
25 February 1999