Swindon in South West England has a new Hindu temple now. Swindon Hindu Temple & Cultural Centre organized its first formal puja on May 21, which reportedly included Ganesh puja, Satyanarayan puja, etc., followed by community lunch.
Run by Swindon Hindu Temple Trust, a registered charity; besides providing worship services; it reportedly plans to organize monthly bhajan-kirtan followed by preeti-bhoj, events, festivals, religious-educational-social-cultural-charitable activities, discourses, religious rites; promote traditional performing arts, Hindu values/traditions, Hinduism and its doctrines; provide a gathering venue for area Hindus; and be a medium for social interaction among people in wider community; etc. Pradeep Bhardwaj is the Trust Chairman.
Commending the efforts of temple leaders and area community involved in realizing this Temple complex, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada, indicated that a Hindu temple was urgently needed for the spiritual needs of about 20,000 Hindus in the area, who had to visit London (about 80 miles) and Birmingham (around 84 miles) for worship services in the absence of Hindu temple. Hinduism, oldest and third largest religion of the world, has about one billion adherents.
