Over 3000 people gathered to participate in the Mahakumbhabhishekam held at the Sri Lakshmi temple in Ashland, MA. The festivities and the religious ceremonies lasted an entire week starting Aug 29, 2005 and ending with the final re-consecration of the temple on Monday, September 5, 2005.  Thirty priests from India and the US gathered to perform the Vedic and Agamic rites in an authentic manner.

Kumbhabhishekam (reconsecration) is the process of infusing divinity and spiritual power into the vigrahas (images of the deities) of a temple. “In order to facilitate renovations of the sanctum sanctorum, the scriptures have prescribed a rite by which Divinity of the idols can be transfered into pots of holy water. The holy water is kept in the Yagnasala during the renovation and we are constantly performing different poojas during the week to the Divine. Once the renovations are done, we will reinfuse the Divinity back into the idols and the Divine returns to the sanctum sanctorum” said Chakrapani Bhattar who came from the Mahalakshmi temple in New Jersey to participate in the event.

The unexpected gliding flight of a garuda/eagle across the length of the Sri Lakshmi temple overhead, minutes before the Kumbhabhishekam Muhurtam, assured the faithful of the blessings of Lord Vishnu . It was a fitting climax to the religious ceremonies. Sri Sidhanatha Gurukkal, the senior most Sivachariar at the event said the Kumbhabhishekam was "uthamathula uthamam", i.e. within the grand category itself it was grand! During the celebrations the priests held a special prayer for the victims of Katrina.

In addition to religious events, there were cultural and educational events going on in parallel. The cultural events organized by Geeta Ranga were extremely well organized. North Indian and South Indian music and dance concerts continued throughout the labor day weekend. Local musical stars including Geeta Murali, Aparna Balaji, Praveen Sitaram, Anurag Harsh, Aditya Kalyanpur, Durga Krishan, Gayathri Satya and others delighted the audiences with their fine classical music presentations. Kumkum Sanyal, Suchitra Rao, Kumkum Dilwali and Lata Mundkur lead bhajan groups.  It was special to listen to a fabulous full length recital by eighteen year old Priya Tirur and Ashwin Gargeya (students of Tara Anand). Local classical dance stars including Meena Subramanium, Jothi Raghavan, Soumya Ramanathan, Sunanda Narayanan, Jeyanthi Ramamoorthy and Janani Giri Swamy presented beautiful items as did their students and students of Jayashree Bala Rajamani , Neena Gulati and Nandini Eashwar.

The event also featured a beautiful bhajan session led by Bhanumathi Narasimhan, sister of Sri Sri Ravishankar, founder Art of Living foundation from India. The bhajan enhanced the spiritual atmosphere. The climax of the cultural events was a fabulous music recital by young Mahesh Kale, from California who received a standing ovation for his recital. 

Prof. Arvind Sharma’s speech on "Why should one be a Hindu?" was inspirational. He presented a three-part framework of subtlety, charity, and creativity to describe the inherent evolutionary processes within Hinduism. As a result, Hinduism continues to generate numerous subtle distinctions, recognizes the sacred as however defined by anyone, and creates a more universal response in the face of a new challenge.

The Hindu Student Council had a beautiful display of posters describing various aspects of Hinduism. Volunteers from different organizations including the Hindu Student Council, Ekal Vidyalaya, Hindu Swayam Sevak Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad were involved in different aspects of the celebration.

”Many devotees, new and old to our temple, as well as founders and ex-trustees told me that it was a magnificent event, conducted in a grand manner.  They also complimented the way it was organized and the contributions of the volunteers. It was very gratifying to hear such comments about the ceremony,” said Kumar Nochur, who is the chairman of the temple.

“Though the Kumbhabhishekam itself is over, we still have 48 days of Mandalabhishekam, which started yesterday.  This is considered the closing part of the ceremonies.  Each day there will be abhishekams for Lakshmi and Ganesha, and homams for Ganesha, for the next 48 days. Devotees  have an opportunity to sponsor Mandalabhishekam events,” said Nochur.

For more information about the Mandalabhishekam please check the website at http://www.srilakshmi.org.

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