INDIA HERALD • WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2015 • PAGE 3

NEWS

By Dr. P. VADUGANATHAN‘The Sri Meenaskhi Temple

Day’, as proclaimed by Pearland Mayor Tom Reid, will forever be remembered by the 3,000 people who were blessed to witness it on Sunday, Nov. 29, 2015. They stood in awe-watch-ing the unique and simultaneous Mahakumbhabhishekam over five Kumbhas or the Vimanams of the main temple.

The clouds had dissipated, the temperature mellowed and the mood was pleasantly moderated to greet the much anticipated pouring of the holy water over the Kumbha.

The Sun peeped out and a Ga-ruda flew over the Rajagopuram.

Devotees arriving early were greeted with Kumbhakonam coffee with hot breakfast and MTK 2015 T-shirts designed by youth.

After conclusion of the fi-nal Yaga Sala Puja, 16 emi-nent priests from Mennakshi Temple, other US temples and India formally recognized me as Chairman, Vice chairman S. Narayanan, Secretary Srikanth Venugopalan and Treasurer Pad-ma Golla and proceeded to the Vimanams for the Kumbhab-hishekam.

This first Shakthi temple in North America was initiated in 1977 and the Main temple con-structed in 1982. After 33 years, the much needed expansion and renovation was taken up in the Main Temple Renovation Proj-

ect (M.T.R.P.) adding a new sanctum and Vimanam for God-dess Mahalakshmi. Over a hun-dred artisans worked on it.

Kumbhabhishekam is a Hindu Temple ceremony that homoge-nizes, synergizes and unites the mystic power of the deity.

Kumbha is the Head or Shika-ra or Crown of the temple also known as Vimanam. To the three existing Vimanams for Shiva, Meenakshi and Venkateswara, two new Vimanams were creat-ed for Mahalakshmi and Utsava Murthis.

After a Ganesha slokam by the popular classical and play back singer Mahathi from Chen-nai, about 70 children and adults recited Sangeetha Samarpanam with “Devi Neeye Thunai” on Meenakshi and “Sri Bhargavi” on Mahalakshmi under the tu-telage of Mrs. Rajarajeswari Bhatt.

India’s Consul General P. Harish Parvathaneni and Mayor Tom Reid unveiled the granite time-markers of the 1982 and 2015 Kumbhabishekams.

The mass of devotees crammed the quadrangle of the temple beholding the priests who performed the simultane-ous Mahakumbhabhishekam on the five Vimanams, to the ac-companiment of Devi stuthi and Mahalakshmi Ashtakam recita-tion.

Consul General Harish cer-emoniously opened the main door made in India out of teak

wood. The crowd hurried in to get a

glimpse of the newly expanded Main temple. Every one could experience the grandeur of the expanded space with new col-umns, tall ceiling, new Lakshmi Sanctum , the pradhakshina around each sanctum, and the ornate new teak wood sanctum doors with silver kamalam.

After Mahabhishekam for all the murthis, Thirukalyanam of Meenkashi - Sundareswara and Padmavathy - Srinivasa was conducted, followed by Ra-thothsavam.

After a sumptuous lunch, there was music concert by Kruthi Bhatt with Vittal Ram-aurthy, Erode Ngarajan, Mahesh Iyer, Keerthana Bhatt and Ravi Balasubramanian.

Cultural events included a concert by Mahathi from Chen-nai on Friday and dances on the glory of Goddess Meenakshi by local dance schools on Saturday. A special Souvenir was also re-leased.

The project cost of 1.5 mil-lion dollars was fully raised by the Fund raising committee led by A.V. N. Reddy. The con-struction committee was led by Vinod Kaila and ably assisted by A.V.N. Reddy. Padmashree Mu-thiah Sthapthi the chief temple architect from Government of Tamil Nadu supervised the proj-ect as Ashok Mungara the local architect managed the construc-tion.

Magnificent, majestic Mahakumbhabhishekam

Singer Mahathi sings in the courtyard before the consecration.

S. Narayanan, left, Srikanth Venucopal, Padma Golla, Nach Vaduganthan, Mayor Tom Reid, and Consul General Harish P., as Chairman P. Vaduganthan welcomes the public.