By Neha  Kolape

April 22^nd 2017 marked the opening ceremony of Hindu temple in Wyndham, Victoria. The temple opened for people to gather and worship. Faithful Hindus flocked to this newly-dedicated temple to see Hindu Gods and Goddesses face to face.

The Hindu temple in Wyndham is now the home of many sacred statues — called murtis — and their presence is already drawing devotees daily and in large numbers on the weekend.

“This is now a living, breathing house of God,” said Pandit Radha Raman. The temple offers a community room free of cost to the people to have their special prayers, devotional functions, bhandaras, birthday havans etc. Recently Hindu temple allotted the room for teaching Hindi to the community free of cost.

Avniesh Bhardwaj along with his family took initiative to bring Hindu temple for the Indian community in Wyndham. However, people from all walks of life and religion are welcome to visit the temple for blessings.

The murti sthapana which means ‘placing of sacred idols through religious ceremonies on an auspicious day’ was done in two days. On the second day the murtis were made visible to public.

Shiv Parivar was devotedly called in the temple by Avniesh and Yogita Bhardwaj. The statues of Lakshmi Mata and Lord Ganesha were brought to life by Rajesh and Monica Raizada. The Radha Krishna statues were welcomed to the temple by Chirag Jani and his wife. Hanuman Ji was called in the temple by Ashwani Jain. Sri Sai Baba was welcomed in the temple by Munish Bansal Budhlada. The pran prathista of the Nau Graha were done by Gautam Gupta, Yash Agarwal along with his wife Richa Agarwal.

Mata murti was devotedly called to reside in the temple by Avniesh’s parents, Raghubir Chander Bhardwaj and Janak Dulari Bhardwaj in the memory of the Vijay Pathak, the younger brother of Janak. The ceremony was a very emotional experience for the Bhardwaj family as well as all devotees present at the opening ceremony of the temple.

Havan was done to call the Gods and Goddesses to reside in the temple and bless the devotees. It was extremely peaceful to see all devotees chant the shlokas which are holy words to ask gods for their blessings and forgiveness.

Havan was followed by Aarti and then all devotees had the honour and opportunity to pray and do murti darshan.

Now temple is open to public everyday. The opening hours are Mon – Sat 8am  to 1pm in the morning hours and 4pm to 9 pm in the evening hours on Sunday the Temple is open 8am to 9pm. Aarti is performed at 9am and 7pm respectively everyday. Every Saturday 7pm Aarti is followed by Bhandara