Shri Sureshchandra Joshi

Hindu Jain Temple priest

Shri Sureshchandra Joshi grew up in Nainital, a city in northern India with a prominent lakeside Hindu temple. His father was a Hindu priest, and he followed his father’s example by becoming one himself.

“He inspired me,” said Shri Joshi. “My father told me, ‘Don’t look for the comfortable life. You can see some people are millionaires — they are not happy.’” Instead, his father taught: “We have to be a good person. The life’s goal is truth and nonviolence.”

He spent years studying Sanskrit and the Vedas — the sacred language and scriptures of Hinduism — along with other religious courses, astrology, yoga and sacred music.

For a time he worked as a school principal in India. Then he was contacted by a friend in the United States who told him: “We have a temple here, and we need a priest in this country.”

“I thought, ‘I can try. I heard about the United States. It’s a good country, it’s a democracy,’” recalled Shri Joshi. (“Shri,” derived from Sanksrit, is an honorific used before Indian surnames.)

He began work on a temporary basis in 1986 at the Hindu Jain Temple in Monroeville, which had been opened two years earlier by many in Pittsburgh’s growing Hindu and Indian American community.

He liked the work, and when the opportunity came to stay permanently at the temple, Shri Joshi accepted it.

The temple is designed in a traditional temple style, with a striking red brick facade and ornate carvings. It has shrines to major deities in the Hindu and Jain religions, both of which trace their roots to India.

While venerating different deities, Hindus

believe they are all manifestations of the same divine unity. Shri Joshi said: “God is supreme, God is one.”

He is one of three priests at the temple, along with Shri Vinod Kumar Pandey and Shri Jagdish Chandra Joshi.

Shri Joshi, 67, and his wife, Maya, live in Monroeville. They have two adult sons.

On a typical morning — pre-pandemic — the priests would preside at opening devotions, bathing and making offerings to the deities while chanting prayers. They regularly preside at pujas, acts of worship on behalf of devotees, throughout the day.

Priests also preside at events honoring 16 points along a person’s life cycle, from before birth through death. They often are called on to go to a devotee’s home for a blessing and worship.

Shri Joshi also accompanies himself on harmonium as he chants sacred prayers and hymns.

During the pandemic, the temple closed to the public in mid-March; it has now begun to reopen with limited hours.

Even when closed, the priests have continued presiding at the devotions and prayers individually.

Early in the pandemic, he assisted a family who could not have him be there in person for a loved one’s funeral due to social distancing, he said.

“We set up the Zoom,” he said. “I gave them the list of all the ritual things they have to collect. Then I gave them the directions of what they had to do. It was only family, only their kids. It was very hard for them.”

When they offer prayers at the temple, the priests are mindful of people in such circumstances during the pandemic:

“Now the whole world is facing difficulty, so we are praying that we all are disease-less and have a happy life,” Shri Joshi said.