A Trip to the Temple

I recently visited the Hindu temple in Maple Grove. Here’s what I have to say about my experience. This was for a class, but if you want to experience it for yourself, tours are given and encouraged.

The temple is very large, and rightfully so. They explained that the temple needed to be near water, since water is the source of all life. One lady asked “If that swamp dried up, would you have to move the temple?”. I thought that question was kind of silly. Our guide responded by saying “We’d just put water back into the swamp. Moving water is much easier than moving a whole temple”.
The group was mostly made up of Christian students from Texas, who traveled to Minnesota to learn about our diverse cultures, including our large Somali population as well as our large Hindu population. I asked them why they came, and they were very kind enough to answer a few of my questions before the tour started.

Our guide told us what Hinduism is all about. We learned a few more things than we learned in class, but for the life of me, I couldn’t understand some of the things our guide was saying. But that’s cool, I understood most of the things he was talking about. He even shared a few children’s stories with us, which I thought was cute. These stories taught me more about the specific gods and goddesses of Hindu culture, and how each one has an interesting story behind them.

Ganesh’s backstory is a bit scary, though. He was decapitated as a baby, and his parents found a baby elephant and replaced the baby’s head with the elephant’s. Hence, his elephant-like appearance. We learned further that Ganesh is perhaps the smartest and wisest of the gods, being hailed as the god of knowledge.

There were many statues at the Hindu temple, especially in what I like to call “The Statue Room”. I couldn’t take any pictures or use my phone, so I wasn’t able to record anything, but hey, it’s not like I needed to for this project. The temple is very sacred, and I respected their wishes. Most of these statues were in these tomb-like structures, and the whole room smelled like one of those odd incense shops at the renaissance festival they have every summer in Shakopee.

Taking a closer look, I noticed a large oven that seemed to be burning the stuff. It looked like the oven/heater was connected to the airflow system, but I could be wrong. All I know is, the place smelled pleasant. A few monks from the temple were chanting and were circled around the oven. I later learned that the use of incense is a tradition in Hinduism, used by the monks as an offering to the gods. This is a daily routine. They must go through a lot of incense if they do it every day, enough to make the entire temple smell like that.  

I was not able to make it to the luncheon, due to prior engagements. However, I have eaten at the temple before, years ago, in fact. I remember much (If not all) of the food having no meat whatsoever, which we learned about in class. I had an Indian roommate who was a vegetarian, and I accepted that. To me, it doesn’t matter what a person eats, especially if the food doesn’t taste that bad. In fact, I’d give Indian food a second shot, if I could just find a place that served it.