Hindus have welcomed the apparent trend of installing towering statues of deities in Hindu temples in North America.
According to reports, Carolina Murugan Temple in Moncure (Chatham County, North Carolina) plans to install a 155-feet statue Of Lord Murugan, which it claims to be the tallest statue of the deity in the world. About 130 acres land had been purchased and estimated cost of first phase of this temple complex is around three-million dollars. With a 35-feet pedestal, this statue’s total height comes to 190-feet.
A 25-feet tall Lord Hanuman statue, weighing 70,000 pounds, was recently greeted at Delaware state line after a long journey from India, and then brought in majestic procession to Hindu Temple of Delaware in Hockessin, where it will be installed in the near future.
Vishnu Mandir in Richmond Hill (Ontario, Canada) reportedly has 50-feet Mangal Murti Hanuman statue, while Lord Hanuman statue at Hanuman Mandir of Greater Chicago in Glenview (Illinois) is 21-feet high. There is a 16-feet statue of goddess Saraswati outside Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Washington DC, while a tall Lord Hanuman statue stands at the entrance of Hari Om Mandir in Medinah (Illinois).
Various top US museums like Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), The Art Institute of Chicago, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Detroit Museum of Arts, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City), Brooklyn Museum (New York), etc., carry statues of some of the Hindu deities like Shiva, Vishnu, Durga, Ganesha, Lakshmi, Hanuman, Krishna, Saraswati, etc.; and Shiva-linga; in their collections.
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, said that the taller statues of Hindu deities did create greater visibility and awareness among communities across the country about Hinduism and might thus inspire them to learn more about Hinduism and its tenets.
Learning about the faith of neighbors creates better understanding and harmony among the society as a whole and develops more opportunities of dialogue, which in turn leads to enhanced mutual trust and overcoming the prejudices; Rajan Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, adds.
Hinduism, oldest and third largest religion of the world, has about 1.1 billion adherents and moksh (liberation) is its ultimate goal. There are about three million Hindus in USA.