Wednesday was a local religious holiday here in Bangalore. So, Lokesh and Naveen, a couple of my local co-workers took me along on a visit to one of their local modern temples. It's called the ISKCON Temple and is fairly new. ISKCON stands for International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Hare Krishna). Hare Krishna is not an exlcusive religion and will let anyone enter the temple as long as proper respect is exhibited. The temple was very crowded with long lines that day. Picture taking was not allowed inside the temple, but this pitcure was taken of me on the outside (all pictures can be clicked on for a larger view).
The main temple is shown in the background of the picture above. This temple is very large and is built at the top of a hill with many steps to get to the top. There are several smaller shrines on the way up the steps to the main temple. Those smaller shrines were to honor various other gods and important people who played a role in the building of the church and the religion. Here's an outside picture of one of the smaller shrines leading up to the main temple.
Shoes are also not allowed in the temple, so we had to remove our shoes and deposit them in a locker system. There was water flowing across one of the steps on the way up and we had stick our feet in it to wash our feet on the way up to the main temple.
The main temple included three shrines/statues inside with lots of gold, jewelry, and treasures desposited there by the many worshipers. We were lead in a line in front of each shrine then were greeted by an attendant/priest who had us stick our hands in a plate of Jasmine flowers. He then asked each of our names. He then said a prayer for each of us and asked Krishna to look over us and protect us. Then he deposited the Jasmine flowers in one of the shrines. The temple ceiling was tall (probably 100 feet high) and had four huge paintings depicting Krishna at various stages in life and other scenes. They were beautiful very impressive paintings. It kind of reminded me of a modern Sistine Chapel. I wish I cold have taken some pictures.
While at the Temple we also came across one of Lokesh's friends Gopi. Here's a picture outside the temple of Gopi, myself, and Lokesh in front of Gopi's car.
Gopi just got married a couple of weeks ago. He has his own building contracting business.