This year's Diwali celebrations became extra special for the Hindu community in North Carolina when the largest temple in the US state inaugurated a 87-feet tower which is described as the "royal gateway" to God.
The grand tower was inaugurated at Sri Venkateswara Temple on October 24, a milestone for the area's growing Hindu community in North Carolina.
Known as the "Tower of Unity and Prosperity", the tower was inaugurated by Governor Gary Cooper who thanked temple leaders for inviting him to inaugurate the religious tower.
Expressing his excitement, Cooper said, “What a wonderful day this is, especially in times of trouble....I liked the way you said, walking into this temple with reverence and leaving your worries on the outside for just a while,” the News & Observer newspaper quoted him as saying.
“That’s something we all need to do, but then we can always leave the temple with even more determination than ever to address those worries and to make sure we’re doing something about it," he added.
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The temple that was dedicated in 2009 started the construction of the tower in 2020 at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, said Lakshminarayanan Srinivasan, general secretary of the temple’s board of trustees, a local news media reported.
The largest of its kind, the "royal gateway" referred to as "gopurams" in India serves as a portal through which the devotees make their way to the temple grounds.
Dr Raj Thotakura, chairman of the temple said," The tower symbolises the feet of the Lord. When devotees come they bow at the feet of the Lord before they come into the raja gopuram and when they proceed into the temple they leave all their worries behind," CBS17 quoted him as saying.
The Indian Diaspora at the event was overjoyed at the completion of the tower as they saw it as India's cultural imprint on the global reach of Hinduism.
According to 2021 census estimates, over 51,000 Indian Americans live in Wake County and an estimated 19,903 Indian Americans live in Cary, North Carolina.
The tower which got funding of around $2.5 million from more than 5,000 community donors is one of the final and most important parts of the religious complex.
The temple has additional expansion plans which include an assembly hall to be built next to the temple, that could be used for conducting cultural events, weddings, and Sunday school, the News & Observer reported.