The Riverside Press-Enterprise

How a massive all-granite, hand-carved Hindu temple ended up on Hawaii's lush Kauai Island

- By Deepa Bharath

KAPAA, HAWAII >> It is the only all-granite, handcarved Hindu temple in the West built without power tools or electricit­y, and it’s nestled on one of the smaller islands in Hawaii surrounded by lush gardens and forests.

On the island of Kauai, the presence of the Iraivan Temple — a white granite edifice with goldleafed domes, modeled after millennia-old temples in South India — is unexpected and stunning. Less than 1% of Hawaii’s 1.4 million residents are Hindus and on Kauai, the number of Hindus may not even exceed 50, according to some estimates.

But that hasn’t deterred the two dozen monks living at the Kauai Aadheenam campus from being good neighbors and stewards of their faith tradition, drawing pilgrims and seekers from around the globe. In this all-male temple-monastery complex, the monks study and practice Shaivism, a major tradition within Hinduism, which holds Lord Shiva as the supreme being.

One of the order’s monks, who has spent decades supervisin­g the temple’s constructi­on and tending to its gardens, is Paramachar­ya Sadasivana­tha Palaniswam­i, who came to the Kauai community of Kapaa in 1968 with his teacher and the center’s founder, the late Satguru Sivaya Subramuniy­aswami. He says the Iraivan Temple was inspired by the founder’s mystical vision of Lord Shiva seated on a large boulder on these grounds. Its constructi­on began in 1990 and continued after the founder’s death in 2001. The word “Iraivan” means “he who is worshipped” in Tamil, a language spoken about 8,000 miles away in southern India.

The monks created an entire village in India for the artisans who hand-built the temple over the last 33 years, said Palaniswam­i.

“Our guru believed that electricit­y brings a magnetic force field and a psychic impact,” he said. “It’s like when the power goes out during a storm, something different happens when there is no electricit­y. There is a certain quiet, a calmness.”

Illuminate­d only by oil lamps, Iraivan has no fans or air-conditioni­ng. Its architectu­ral style is from the Chola Dynasty, which ruled parts of what is now South India and Sri Lanka for about 1,500 years, starting in 300 B.C.

The main deity is the 700-pound quartz crystal shivalinga­m, an abstract representa­tion of Shiva. The campus also houses Kadavul Temple dedicated to Shiva in the cosmic dancer form, or Nataraja.

Priest Pravinkuma­r Vasudeva arrived in March, when the temple — 3,600 stones, pillars and beams made with roughly 3.2 million pounds of granite — was consecrate­d. He is still amazed it stands on this tiny island.

“In India, you could possibly build something like this, but it hasn’t been done,” he said. “Here, it is nearly impossible, but it has been done.”

The order’s origin story began in 1948 with founder Subramuniy­aswami, a former San Francisco ballet dancer who sought out a spiritual teacher. In northern Sri Lanka, Guru Yogaswami initiated him into Shaivism and instructed him to build “a bridge between the east and west,” said Palaniswam­i, the garden-tending monk.

Based in San Francisco in 1969, the founder “felt the sacred pull” of the Kauai property while on a retreat there, the monk said. It was a rundown Tropical Inn resort at the time.

To Native Hawaiians, the plot of land was known as Pihanakala­ni, or “the fullness of heaven.” Cognizant of that connection, Subramuniy­aswami wanted to make sure the new temple aligned with Native Hawaiian spirits.

So 35 years ago, he reached out to Lynn Muramoto, a local Buddhist leader who had navigated a similar situation. She is the president of the Lawai Internatio­nal Center on Kauai, which is home to 88 Shingon Buddhist shrines on an ancient sacred site where Hawaiians once came for healing.

She visited the temple site with the late Abraham Kawai’i, a revered Hawaiian spiritual practition­er, or kahu, and witnessed the “deeply moving” moment when Kawai’i called the location “perfect.”

Sabra Kauka, a Native Hawaiian cultural practition­er on Kauai, said she was “a little aghast” in the beginning, but then consulted Aunty Momi Mo’okini Lum, her calabash aunt who is descended from Moikeha, the chief from Tahiti who built Pihanakala­ni some 1,000 years ago. Lum told her the monks had the means to take care of the land in perpetuity. “And so I laid down my concerns,” she said.

Kauka praised the monks’ landscapin­g, from plant choices to controllin­g invasive species.

“The very fact that we have people on this island who care for our historic places, realize the value of them and are taking care of them in an exquisite way is remarkable,” Kauka said.

Subramuniy­aswami prioritize­d fostering connection­s across the island’s faith traditions. These relationsh­ips have stretched beyond Kauai, and continue today. Following the deadly Maui wildfires in August, Palaniswam­i said, the temple helped connect Hindu donors to local groups leading recovery efforts.

The monastery-temple complex, accessible via a public gate, also helps connect visitors to something greater. Devajyothi Kondapi from Portland, Oregon, has only heard stories about great saints and sages in ancient India who blessed and sanctified the land.

“Here, I feel their presence,” she said during a recent visit, a trip she makes a couple times a year. “What makes this a divine place is the monks’ discipline.”

The monks, who take vows of celibacy, nonviolenc­e and vegetarian­ism, are guided and inspired by the philosophy of Shaivism. They live in huts, and begin their day with 4 a.m. worship and meditation, followed by gardening, woodworkin­g, cooking and other tasks. They do not speak about their prior lives.

Beyond the temple itself, one of their most significan­t projects took eight years to complete. In the 1990s, the monks digitized agamas, or ancient Shaivite texts etched on palm leaves, Palaniswam­i said.

They preserved these fragile texts, or as Palaniswam­i calls them, a Shaivite “user manual of sorts,” and made the digitized version public. Now anyone can read Shaivite instructio­ns on everything from running a temple and celebratin­g festivals to preparing meals and managing a family.

The Shaivite tradition is one that blends theism (belief in gods) and monism, the belief in one, supreme being, said Satguru

Bodhinatha Veylanswam­i, the order’s current leader. The end goal is to attain oneness with the supreme being.

“A beautiful, holy place has the catalytic power to help you find that sacredness within.”

Sannyasin Tillainath­aswami, a monk who has lived here for more than a decade, said the ancient practice drew him in because it delves deep into the meaning of one’s existence.

“If you find the center of yourself, you’ve found that which is the center of everything,” he said.

Over the last 50 years, Palaniswam­i, who knows every sector of the 382acre grounds, has carved out tranquil spaces conducive to meditation and reflection. The monk wears flowing saffron robes and a fluffy silver beard. His hair is gathered in a bun atop his head, adorned with a red hibiscus bloom. Streaks of sacred ash mark his forehead, accentuate­d with a vermilion dot in the middle.

On most days, Palaniswam­i, who also runs the order’s website and publicatio­ns department, drives a golf cart along the winding pathways tending to the flora — plumeria, orchids, hibiscus, passion fruit, redwood, lotuses and herbs.

Along with his guru, he planted 108 Rudraksha trees, which are native to Nepal and rarely seen in the West. The word “Rudraksha” in Sanskrit means “the tear of Shiva.” The trees bear cerulean fruit, and its seeds are used for prayer, meditation and protection.

“Shiva was in heaven and looked down on the earth, and when he saw the plight of humans, it so moved him that he wept a tear that rolled off his cheek and fell to the earth,” Palaniswam­i said. “From that tear grew the first Rudraksha tree.”

The trees started as 3-inch seedlings about 45 years ago, and now tower over 100 feet with thick roots. The monks pressurewa­sh the seeds, stringing them into meditation malas, worn as a reminder of Shiva’s compassion, said Palaniswam­i, who plans to build a public meditation room.

For Veylanswam­i, the order’s leader, his favorite campus meditation spot is where a gentle waterfall meets the gushing Wailua River, which is sacred to some Native Hawaiians.

There, he says, he feels a transforma­tive power, especially when he chants Shiva’s name.

 ?? PHOTOS BY JESSIE WARDARSKI — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? The sun shines down on the golden spires of the Iraivan Temple at Kauai’s Hindu Monaster, on July 10in Kapaa, Hawaii. The temple is made entirely of hand-carved granite, which the monks have been constructi­ng for the last 33years. It was completed in March and marked with a special opening ceremony the same month.
PHOTOS BY JESSIE WARDARSKI — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The sun shines down on the golden spires of the Iraivan Temple at Kauai’s Hindu Monaster, on July 10in Kapaa, Hawaii. The temple is made entirely of hand-carved granite, which the monks have been constructi­ng for the last 33years. It was completed in March and marked with a special opening ceremony the same month.
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 ?? ?? A piece of sacred fruit lays at the base of a Rudraksha tree at the Kauai Hindu Monastery on July 10in Kapaa, Hawaii.
A piece of sacred fruit lays at the base of a Rudraksha tree at the Kauai Hindu Monastery on July 10in Kapaa, Hawaii.

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