In August 1980, the Churchill Halls in Effra Road were purchased and internal alterations carried out according to the guidelines laid down in our ancient scriptures. The adjoining church hall was converted into a Sai Mandir - a prayer hall dedicated to Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, which was opened on 1st January 1981. Lord Ghanapathy is the God who is worshipped by all Hindus throughout the world and, in September 1981, the Shree Ghanapathy Temple was opened with a grand and lavish Maha Kumbabishekham, making it the first fully consecrated Hindu Temple in Europe.
From its first service in 1981, the Temple has grown and adapted to the changing needs of our Hindu Community. Our focus has shifted from that of purely ritualistic worship, to a more holistic approach to providing for the spiritual, moral and emotional needs of our devotees. So, although we perform all the services of a traditional Hindu Temple e.g. regular religious services, Hindu festivals, births, weddings and death ceremonies etc., we also arrange talks and discussion groups by experts in religion, and philosophy, we conduct yoga and meditation classes and also health seminars during the year.
Volunteers from the Merton Sai Centre, who meet regularly at the Sai Mandir for worship and other religious activities, form a core group of volunteers from the Mandir and the Temple who help with many community projects within the London Borough of Merton, including meals on wheels, food for the homeless, hampers for the elderly and conservation work. Each year we also have over 3000 local children, students, teachers and members of other faiths, who come to the Temple to learn more about Hinduism. The principle ethos that runs through all our work is that "Service to Man is Service to God".
The Temple administration has a good balance of young men and women who bring new ideas and a fresh approach to the Temple, and also a group of older, more experienced members of the community, who help to keep the traditions and original vision of the Temple alive. This Temple was created to serve our people, to give spiritual and emotional comfort to all those who need it. We have no fixed rates for basic religious services at the Temple - thus allowing people to give what they wish or what they can afford. Our basic principle is that the Temple is open to all who wish to come and pray, regardless of wealth or status, social background or creed. We have gained a reputation for being an unmaterialistic temple, and the Lord has rewarded us by always giving us the money and resources whenever we needed it for His work.
We hope you enjoy using this webpage, which was created by dedicated young devotees of our Temple and Sai Mandir. Please feel free to e-mail us about your views, or any suggestions you might have regarding additions to the website or new projects for the Temple and Sai Mandir. We look forward to seeing you at the Temple, and we pray that Lord Ghanapathy will shower His blessings upon you and guide you in the good work that you do in the future.
The Temple
In 1979, a few Sri Lankan Hindu Saivite families, living in and around Wimbledon, began to meet together at a local hall to worship Lord Ghanapathy. They had a single statue of Lord Ganesha, hired a priest to conduct the service, and began regular Friday worship, gaining spiritual comfort that helped them to relive the happy times of religious harmony that they had once shared in their homeland. As the months went by, more and more devotees began to attend the service, and the need for a permanent, sanctified building, dedicated to Hindu worship, became a priority.
In 1980, one of the families found and bought a property in Wimbledon and offered it for community worship, and thus the Shree Ghanapathy Temple was born. It began life as an abandoned and dilapidated Christian Church, then an under-used Community Centre and, within a year, was transformed internally to become a Hindu Temple. It had its Maha Kumbabishekam in September 1981, and became the first ever consecrated Hindu Temple in Europe. The adjoining church hall was converted into a Sai Mandir - the first of it's kind in the U.K., and thus began a union of ancient and modern Hinduism that has grown from strength to strength over the past 19 years.
The Temple met with much opposition at the beginning, from the local community and, unfortunately, from certain members of our own community! The council attempted to close the Temple down on the very day of the Maha Kumbabishekam and thus began a legal battle that continued to the High Courts and beyond. However Lord Ghanapathy heard our prayers and protected his Temple and devotees. We won the legal battle and were allowed to continue our worship without restriction.
Over the next few years, we struggled to build bridges with the local community, and we did this through their children! The ILEA recommended us as the best Temple to visit to learn about Hinduism and, every year, over 3000 children and teachers from local schools would visit the Temple to learn about Hinduism, about our customs and traditions, and to dispel any fears or misconceptions they might have about us and our faith. The children educated their parents and gradually the local community grew to accept us.
The Sai Mandir also gave invaluable assistance by their extensive voluntary work within the local community and, because of their efforts, the Temple became known for it's extensive charitable and multi-faith work within the London Borough of Merton.
From its first service in 1981, the Temple has grown and adapted to the changing needs of the increasing number of devotees who came to pray at the Temple. We began with just traditional ritualistic worship and one resident priest. This increased to daily services, with the Temple being open from 8am to 10pm every day. We now have 4 permanent priests, including a "Saiva Kurukkal" who performs funeral services and associated ceremonies.
We noticed that a large proportion of the devotees were parents with young children, struggling to teach their children about our rich culture and heritage, fearing that they would be lost in the more materialistic society of the west. We therefore began religious music and religious instruction classes at the Temple, giving our facilities free to the teachers, yet ensuring that they kept their fees to the bare minimum, so that all would be able to afford to educate their children in our traditional music and dance.
Over the years, we have seen many of these young children blossom into exceptional dancers, singers and instrumentalists, and our greatest joy was when one of our first students in Bharathanatyam came back to the Temple to teach dancing herself, fulfilling our hopes and dreams for our culture to be carried forward to future generations.
We also realised that there was an urgent need to educate our youngsters in the traditions and philosophy of Hinduism. Our children, brought up in the west, have been taught to question and reason and will not now accept blindly the rituals and practices of our religion. And this is a good thing, because they wish to study our faith at a much deeper level than we have ever done. Our religion has such a depth of knowledge and wisdom to impart and we soon realised that, if we gave our children the opportunity to learn about our religion in greater depth, they would understand and practise our faith with much greater strength and commitment than we have. And so, the Sai Mandir began regular spiritual education classes, teaching our children Sanskrit slokas, puranic stories, how to sing bajans and play musical instruments, as well as learning about Hindu philosophy and other religions. In addition, the Temple has regular Religious Classes, where children are taught about the "Puncha Puranam", and the puranic stories of Saivaism. The teachers' hard work is now blossoming with children who have a thorough knowledge and understanding of Hinduism, and a deep faith and commitment to our community, with the confidence and skill to be able to go and teach Hinduism to the local school children who come to visit us. Thus the future of our religion in this country is secured.
Over the past ten years, because of the continuing ethnic violence in Sri Lanka, there has been a steady stream of refugees from our country, who have used the Temple as a focus for comfort and support. We have done our best to help house and give assistance to all who have come to us, asking for help. But it did not stop at material help. Many parents came to us in tears because their children, who were bright and hard-working, were struggling to survive in local government schools, with limited resources and teachers who were not prepared to help with their lack of knowledge of spoken and written English. They were often branded as low achievers or unintelligent and often came home depressed and in tears. Again, our volunteers from the Sai Mandir and the Temple began free tuition classes in basic English and other academic subjects for these children, with the Temple providing rooms and free resources for teaching. Our reward was to see these children blossom into productive and confident learners who amazed their schools by achieving top marks in public examinations. And now some members of the Sai Mandir run a regular Saturday School at a local grammar school, which gives tuition in academic subjects to many of our children.
To help our children and young adults learn about advances in modern technology, the Sai Mandir also ran free computer workshops, teaching basic computer programming and advanced use of the latest software packages. The children displayed their newly acquired knowledge with Computer exhibitions, which were attended by successive Mayors of Merton. We were so impressed by the quality of their work and their dedication, that we created a special room for them at the Temple. The children now use this room to further develop their skills and create high quality publications for the Sai Mandir and the Temple.
We also have a well-stocked library, containing reference books on Hinduism, other religions and Sai literature, which is used by devotees and by visiting teachers and students of religion.
The Temple authorities are always looking for new ways that we can serve the growing and diverse needs of our community, helping not only spiritually, but also morally, emotionally and physically. We have been able to do all this work without the need for grants or any other assistance from local government. We have never had to resort to fund-raising appeals and nothing is ever sold within the Temple. We have no fixed rates for basic religious services at the Temple - thus allowing people to give what they wish or what they can afford. Our basic principle is that the Temple is open to all who wish to come and pray, regardless of wealth or status, social background or creed. We have gained a reputation for being an unmaterialistic temple, and the Lord has rewarded us by always giving us the money and resources whenever we needed it for His work.
Our future plans include further development of the Temple, including the decoration of the Temple with traditional sculptures and artwork, to be carried out by Stapathis (temple architects) from South India. We also wish to begin to concentrate more into the philosophy and spirituality of Hinduism, looking beyond the deities/statues to the higher levels of Hinduism, and to continue to provide an environment that nurtures our young children.
Our long term goals include buying a community hall for cultural activities and programmes, the creation of a spiritual retreat in the countryside, and finally a proper Hindu school for our children, where they can learn not only academic subjects to a high standard, but also the richness of our culture and religious heritage that is our gift to our future generations. The Lord has given us the ability and resources to do so much already - we know that He will give us more in the future to continue His work in this country.