First Hindu temple on West Coast is in S.F.
One of the most exoticlooking buildings in San Francisco stands on the southwest corner of Filbert and Webster streets, in the decidedly unexotic neighborhood of Cow Hollow. A strange mélange of Eastern and Western design elements, the building features a spectacular arcaded balcony with Mogul arches supported by Moorish columns on Doric bases, topped with a profusion of weird and wonderful towers, including a European castlelike crenellated tower, a double bulbshaped dome that recalls Ben
gal temples, and a dome in the style of the Taj Mahal.
The architecture of this eyecatching building, known as the Old Temple, reflects the spiritual beliefs of those who built it. It was built in 1905 by the Vedanta Society of Northern California, one of a number of Vedanta Societies established across the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. The Vedanta Societies were based upon the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, a 19th century Indian monk who practiced Vedanta, the most prominent of the six schools of Hindu philosophy. Ramakrishna’s version of Vedanta, known as Advaita Vedanta, proclaimed the oneness of God. He believed that all religions were ultimately seeking the same truth.
The man responsible for bringing Vedanta to the United States was Ramakrishna’s first great disciple, Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda was introduced to Ramakrishna in a way that epitomized the openness to different cultural and religious traditions the Vedanta Society would come to epitomize.
Around 1880, the young Vivekananda, whose premonastic name was Narendranath Datta, was attending a literature class at Calcutta’s General Assembly Institution given by a professor named William Hastie. Discussing William Wordsworth’s poem “The Excursion,” Hastie emphasized the importance of the poet’s use of the word “trance.” When Datta said he did not understand the word, Hastie told him he should meet Ramakrishna. Datta met Ramakrishna, became his disciple, and dedicated his life to spreading his master’s teachings.
In 1893, Datta, now known as Vivekananda, gave a talk at the World’s Parliament of Religions, an international conference of religious scholars held in Chicago, that caused a sensation and turned the previously unknown monk into an international spiritual celebrity. Vivekananda lectured widely across the country and in 1894 founded the first Vedanta Society in New York. In 1898 he came to the Bay Area and started the Vedanta Society of Northern California in San Francisco in April 1900, two years before his death.
A dynamic young disciple, Swami Trigunatita, took over the Society’s leadership in 1902 and began planning a temple that would serve as the organization’s headquarters. Construction of the first two floors on Webster was completed in 1905. With the exception of its arched windows, a pointed doorway and a single dome, it was a conventional Western building. But in 1908, Trigunatita, working with architect Joseph Leonard, added a third floor and a profusion of towers and domes, transforming a relatively prosaic structure into a unique example of architectural eclecticism. It was the first Hindu temple in the West.
Arijit Sen noted in an article that appeared in the winter 2013 issue of Winterthur Portfolio that, “In 1915, during the PanamaPacific International Exposition, the temple became an urban landmark, and its exotic architecture became the very symbol of San Francisco’s claim as the gateway to the Orient.”
For some of the local children, the temple had a more sinister aspect. As Walter de Vecchi recalled in his memoir about growing up in the neighborhood, “Without doubt the most awesome, the most spooky, the most spinetingling curiosity in all Cow Hollow (was) … the Vedanta Temple #1 … I’ve always tried to forget it! … Not even the biggest clown among us ever made jokes about its weird signs and magic symbols; not even the bravest among us ever dared to trespass its haunted, threatening soil.”
The Vedanta Temple was far from threatening, but one terrible event did take place there. On December 28, 1914, Swami Trigunatita was giving a Sunday service when a mentally ill former student named Varvara hurled a homemade bomb at the pulpit. The student was killed and Trigunatita was mortally wounded. On the way to the hospital, the Swami, who was in excruciating pain, asked about the student, saying, “Where is Varvara, poor fellow?” Trigunatita lingered almost two weeks. On Jan. 9, he told a disciple that he would leave his body the next day. He died on Jan. 10.
Trigunatita was succeeded by other disciples, who have carried on the Society’s mission for more than a century.
In 1959, the Vedanta Society opened a New Temple at the corner of Vallejo and Fillmore streets, which serves as the main center for the Society’s activities. The Old Temple, as it became known, was renovated in 2017 and is very much still in use: it is a residence for monks and is the site of Friday night meetings and Sunday school classes, which will be resumed when the Covid pandemic is over. The ecumenical spirit that inspired the building’s unique architecture lives on inside it.
Gary Kamiya is the author of the bestselling book “Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco,” awarded the Northern California Book Award in creative nonfiction. His new book, with drawings by Paul Madonna, is “Spirits of San Francisco: Voyages Through the Unknown City.” All the material in Portals of the Past is original for The San Francisco Chronicle. To read earlier Portals of the Past, go to sfchronicle.com/ portals. For more features from 150 years of The Chronicle’s archives, go to sfchronicle.com/vault. Email: metro@sfchronicle. com