Sri Venkateswara Temple, Pittsburgh is a Hindu temple in

Penn Hills Penn Hills is a township with home rule status in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 41,059 as of the 2020 census. Penn Hills is the second-largest municipality in Allegheny County, after Pittsburgh. History In 178 ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. Constructed in the style of the Sri Venkateswara Temple in

Tirupati Tirupati () is a city in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is the administrative headquarters of the Tirupati district. The city is home to the important Hindu shrine of Tirumala Venkateswara Temple and other historic temples and is refe ...

, India, it is the oldest Hindu temple in the United States built by Indian immigrants. It is a pilgrimage site for Hindus in the

Northeastern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

and

Midwestern United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

and has been described as "the trend-setting

South Indian South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territo ...

temple in its celebration of expensive, time-consuming, and intricate rituals."

History

During a

Pongal Pongal may refer to: * Pongal (festival), an annual Tamil festival * Pongal (dish) Pongal, also known as pongali or huggi, is an Indian rice dish. In Tamil, "pongal" means "boil" or "bubbling up". The two varieties of pongal are ''chakarai pong ...

celebration in January 1972, a group of Pittsburgh-area Hindus established a shrine with images of Hindu deities in a store basement. In summer 1972, a

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

Ganesha Ganesha ( sa, गणेश, ), also known as Ganapati, Vinayaka, and Pillaiyar, is one of the best-known and most worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon and is the Supreme God in Ganapatya sect. His image is found throughout India. Hindu d ...

statue was donated to the group by Balakrishna Naidu of

Coimbatore Coimbatore, also spelt as Koyamputhur (), sometimes shortened as Kovai (), is one of the major metropolitan cities in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyyal River and surrounded by the Western Ghats. Coimbato ...

, India. Since Ganesha is worshipped before beginning an auspicious endeavor, the group saw the gift as "a good omen to invoke blessings to a larger project." The temple's groundbreaking occurred on April 17, 1975. After the groundbreaking, tensions developed between two factions of the community: those who thought the temple should reflect South Indian traditions and architecture, and those who wanted

North Indian North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Central ...

traditions and deities represented as well. This led to a split between the factions. The North Indians constructed their own temple in suburban Monroeville, and the South Indians' temple was built in Penn Hills. The Penn Hills temple was completed and consecrated on June 8, 1977, becoming the first Hindu temple in the United States built by Indian immigrants. In 2005, the temple was remodeled to resemble the Sri Venkateswara Temple in Tirupati at a cost of $1.5 million. In 2011, $15,000 in credit cards and jewelry was stolen from the temple.

Design

The temple was designed by The Endowment Department of

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. The temple is designed with two sides and a tower in the middle symbolizing two hands and a head. The temple operates a cafeteria as well in its basement.

References

{{Hindu temples in the United States , state=expanded Asian-American culture in Pittsburgh Buildings and structures in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Religious buildings and structures completed in 1976 Religious organizations established in 1973 Hindu temples in Pennsylvania Indian-American culture in Pennsylvania 1973 establishments in Pennsylvania Religious buildings and structures in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

History

Design

See also

References