The Temple Of Ganeša

The First Visit to the Ganeša Temple

I arrived at the Temple on a Friday morning after arranging a meeting with the Public Relations Officer, G. Padmanabhan who everyone calls GP.  It took me a while to find the temple not because I was on the wrong street but because that on the outside it doesn’t look like a temple (or what I imagined one to look like).  It’s a very large moderate constructed black building.  As I walked in to the entrance of the temple the security guy told me where to put my shoes.  The immense hallway as you walk into the temple has many pillars and on each one of them there is a sculpture of Ganeša the god of the temple.  There is a main entrance but I believe since the temple is under construction the entrance now is through the basement where people can leave there shoes and then they walk upstairs to the temple itself.  After leaving my shoes in the basement, I walked up stairs. While I was waiting to Mr. GP, I spoke to the guy at the main desk who explained to me about what I saw.  Apparently I got there exactly on the time. The priest was giving Ganeša an Abhishekam a holy shower.

I do have to say that when I walked into the Temple the first thing I said was wow.  The temple is a big large room with a high ceiling and shiny marble floors.   At the center of the temple, there is the big statue of Ganeša.  In every other corner there are the statues of other deities the three main gods Shiva Brahma Vishnu and their wife’s Parvati Saraswati and Lakshmi and the rest of the gods’ statues were around them.  GP the Public Relation Officer is a very nice pleasant man with lots of patience.  He sat with me at the corner of the temple where we could see all the gods and he started explaining to me about the gods, their importance and about the proceedings of the prayers.  GP explained to me why Ganeša is the main god of the temple, although there are many gods Ganeša is the main god.  When people want to ask for prosperity for example they will first go to Ganeša and after they will go to Lakshmi the god of prosperity.  There are many gods but each temple chooses the main god they want to worship and he will be at the center of the temple and the name of the temple will be the name of the god as well.  GP gave me an example why they have a main god, one Supreme Being.  For example, we have many friends but we don’t like them all the same.  So it is the same thing, there are many gods but we don’t treat them all the same. The temple was full of spices and the smell of flowers. There weren’t a lot of people at the temple but once the bell rang announcing they were going to give Ganeša a holy shower I saw all the people going towards his statue.