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| Paul Kitagaki Jr. / [email protected] Kulwant Minhas cleans up Sunday at the altar in the Sri Narayan Hindu Temple in Yuba City. Missing from the religious icons is the Shivling, which to the dismay of many of the area's Hindus and others was put outside, in a plastic bag near the garbage. In its place here is a tall vase of flowers. |
Monday, May. 7. 2012, YUBA CITY – The Sri Narayan Hindu Temple, a spiritual jewel attended by Indian immigrants across faiths, no longer has its sacred core.
Its Shivling – a 350-pound black marble icon representing the Hindu creator and destroyer Shiva – was taken from the altar and placed outside several weeks ago. Offerings of buttermilk, yogurt and honey poured on it attracted worms, flies and bugs.
It was supposed to be cleansed with water from the Ganges River. Temple caretaker Sushil Bhopla said there was no one to wash it and that bugs were infesting it.
Shocked worshippers said they found the Shivling in a black plastic bag next to the trash – an act of sacrilege they likened to tossing a crucifix out of a church.
Himant Pandit comes from a long line of pandits, or Hindu priests. He said he rescued the Shivling and, with the caretaker's permission, placed it in his yard so devout Hindus can still worship it.
Pandit, 38, said that when he saw it near the trash, "my heart dropped."
"The Shivling represents the main god, and the second object you pray to after Ganesh, the elephant god, that's the son of Shiva," he said.
The caretaker denied throwing out the Shivling.
"We put it outside next to the roses because there was mold and a smell, " Bhopla said.
She said she planned to move it to a covered shed.
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| Paul Kitagaki Jr. / [email protected] Himant Pandit washes and pays honor to the Shivling in his yard. Pandit said "my heart dropped" when he saw where it had been placed earlier. |
Prem Hunji Turner, a Sacramento attorney and the temple's board secretary, is the daughter of temple founder Hardial Singh Hunji.
She said the Shivling "is a deity that is temple property. It needs to be brought back in a respectful way."
But Pandit, whose father and grandfather were Hindu priests, refuses to return the Shivling because "according to Hindu religion, once it has been desecrated, you can't put it back in the same place. You're supposed to bring in a new one and have a proper ceremony for it."
Protest organizer Bhawana Sood said the community might be willing to bring back the Shivling if the temple meets four demands: Hire a priest; account for the donations; install the Shivling under an outdoor canopy; and give the community a voice in temple affairs.
"We have given them 30 days," Sood said.
Built in wife's memory
The temple was built in 1996 by Hardial Singh Hunji, a Sikh who emigrated from Punjab, India, along with 100 other farmers in 1948.
Today, thousands of Sutter County residents are from Punjab, most of them Sikh and some Hindu.
Hunji, now 96, said, "I came here to make a little money."
That he did, growing peaches, walnuts, prunes and almonds on 200 acres. Hunji walks with a cane and is hard of hearing, but his pale-blue eyes sparkle as he sits in the temple he built in honor of his late Hindu wife, Kushlia Devi Hunji.
In 1952 he brought her from India. She wanted a place to pray, so he promised to build her a temple – a promise that she reminded him of on her deathbed.
Hunji said he donated the land and spent several million dollars building and stocking the temple.
By the entrance is a full-size statue of his late wife, who died in 1993. After he returned to India to place her ashes in the Ganges, he said she appeared in a dream and reminded him to build the temple.
He spends much of each day meditating inside. He strolls across the red carpet and sits facing the stage, which includes an arcade filled with marble statues of Hindu deities, a canopy bed where Hindu singers sit and a table where worshippers bring offerings of sweets and fruits.
There is a long altar with roses, a statue of Ganesh, a donation box, and now a mini Shivling a few inches tall.
But the original Shivling – a fertility statue depicting human creation that Hardial Singh Hunji imported from India – is gone.
Shivling important symbol
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| Paul Kitagaki Jr. / [email protected] Hardial Singh Hunji, 96, and his daughter, Prem Hunji Turner. Hunji, a Sikh, built the temple to honor his late wife, a Hindu. |
"We put the Shivling outside – not in the garbage – because nobody did anything to take care of it," said Hunji. The temple hasn't had a priest in years because previous priests couldn't be trusted with donations, he said.
The temple is trying to bring a new priest from India, but will also explore U.S. candidates, his daughter said.
Jeetendra Sharma, who has prayed at the temple since 1995, said he and others are mourning the Shivling's loss.
"If it's missing, it's like there's nothing here."
Tejinder Dosanjh, general secretary of the nearby Tierra Buena Sikh Temple, joined the protest.
"As a Sikh, I respect every religion," he said. "The Shivling should be respected like the holy book. We have 17,000 Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims here; it's a very united community … a lot of Sikhs come here whenever there's a function."
Sunday's protesters said the community donated $130,000 when the temple was built to ensure there was a priest.
Turner told protesters, "I'm sorry if there were any misdeeds. It's very important to us that no deity's disrespected."
She refused to ask the caretaker to issue a public apology because "emotions are too high right now. I don't want my dad to have a heart attack over this."
She asked protesters to submit plans for an outdoor stage for the Shivling.
"Give us a cost and permit and send it to us," she said. "If there are issues about donation money, we will investigate them."
The temple must offer unity and peace of mind, Turner said, putting her hands together. "Namaste – the god within me honors the god within you."
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