Last Saturday evening, about 15 devotees came to the Hunger Banquet at Brigham Young University for chanting and a drama. Ram Ranjana took this picture from the balcony of the Wilkinson Student Center while the act previous to...

Shiva Ratri is always a well attended event and this year was no exception. I estimate 600 people came and went during the three hour festivities. There was an mix of 30 per cent Indians and 70 per cent Westerners. I noticed not only Western...

The train to Vijayawada arrived at 4 am. By 6 we had checked our bags at the cloak room and taken number 20 bus to Mangalagiri. This is the town with the famous Pana Narasingha deity installed on a hill approached by 400 steps. There is a large...

Last Monday from my office window I noticed a sole Indian gentleman circling the temple verandah on foot. He had apparently tried entering from the upstairs, but that door is often stuck in winter due to cold expansion. His name was Vikram K. visiting from...

The afternoon Blake and Mikela arrived we dined at Vrndavan Restaurant and visited the two major temples in Madras, Kapaleeswara and Parthasarathy. Parthasarathy, Krishna as the chariot driver of Arjuna, is worshipped in a 1200 year old temple in the Triplicane part of town. Kapaleeswara is in the Mylapore area, so named because Parvati was...

Before wrinting this piece I created a folder in the gallery, entitled "India Trip 2007" and posted 23 pictures of our trip thus far. Will now add to it regularly. Vai and I went by train to Sri Rangam the 10th January. It was a five and one half hour journey which put us...

A project that intimidated us since 2001, was conceptualized by Vaibhavi in 2005, physically begun in May of 2006, was just this day (Dec. 22) completed. The main dome of the temple room was built back in 1999 by a company from Idaho Falls, called “Dome Technologies”.

At the beginning of 2006 Vaibhavi vowed the interior decoration of the 33 thousand pound dome over the temple room would be completed by year’s end. Though the temple opened more than five years ago, June 23, 2001, she put off this project until there was a clear conception of how to do it. The  dome of the original building, Kusum Sarovar in Braja Bhumi, after which our temple was modeled, still shows the results of intricate hand painting 500 years ago.