Crawley Hindu temple celebrates tenth anniversary

The Crawley Swaminarayan Hindu Temple celebrated its 10th birthday with a week long festival - picture submitted

As well as offering Hindu worship services like celebrating festivals, the temple also offers community events for the senior citizens, youngsters, and female groups.

From Septempber 5 to 11, the Temple held seven day celebration to commemorate the milestone.

It included a seven day recital of a Hindu Scripture Shrimad Bhagvat, bathing of deities in milk and honey by the leader of the Swaminarayan Hindu Religion, Acharya Koshalendraprasadji Maharaj from Ahmedabad, India.

Raj Patel said: “We also had ten Hindu monks from India, guests from all over the world, we had over 250 different types of foods offered to the deities, the Mayor of Crawley Raj Sharma graced our event and over 1,000 devotees throughout the week.

“One of the most memorable events to mark the event was the initiation of the ‘Pledge a tree for life’ campaign headed by our spiritual leader Acharya Koshalendraprasadji Maharaj by planting the first of many fruit trees and in association with Brogdale Collections Charity.

“This is in line with the motto of our faith ‘Preservation Plus’ To give back to humanity and preserve for the future.”

Many attendees including the temple’s president were left impressed by the week’s event.

Dipak Valand: “It’s been an exceptional week with so many devotees, so much food, and blessings from the Hindu monks.”

Temple president Jitesh Patel said: “This is a huge milestone for our temple and to think the seven day celebrations have been much bigger than what I had in mind.”

Others travelled for miles to be there. Nikita Patel said: “ I have come from London just for these celebrations and it has been a brilliant experience(especially the food), cant for the next milestone”

The Temple serves the community on a daily basis for the religious and non-religious needs such as social classes, language classes, and kids culture groups.

They have also run fundraising events for charities such as Cancer Research UK, funding for underprivileged children in India, and they are currently working in association with Brogdale Collections Charity to use the large green space around them in line with the religion’s ethos to live in harmony with mother nature.