Talking to The Hindu on Wednesday at Hare Krishna Land, a seven-acre stretch acquired by ISKCON in Poigai Mottur village in Vellore taluk, 10 km from Vellore city and about five km off the Chennai-Bangalore National Highway, Mr. Das said that ISKCON has planned to build a traditional stone temple for Lord Krishna that would last for more than 1,000 years. “We want to do some serious research on the type of materials to be used to build the temple before starting the work. It would take another 10 years for the temple to be ready”, he said.
At present, the Hare Krishna Land has a couple of buildings which houses a temporary temple, kitchen, Prasadam hall and a Brahmacharis’ (celibates) rest house. A new four-storeyed guest house would be built at the spot to accommodate the devotees who visit the temple. The proposed guest house would have about 60 rooms, said Mr. Das.
A group of 10 ISKCON devotees from the U.S. visited the ISKCON centre here on Wednesday, as part of their pilgrimage to India. The devotees had already visited Tirupathi, Ahobilam, Srirangam and Udipi. From here, they left for Salem, after which they would be visiting other pilgrim centres in the country.
The Bhagawad Gita philosophy, he said, was not sectarian knowledge belonging to any particular caste, creed or entity, but meant for all living entities.
ISKCON founder A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada who went to the U.S. in 1965 and founded ISKCON in 1966 preached the message in the U.S. In 12 years, he travelled all over the world 14 times. He gave an institutional structure to preach the message of Bhagawad Gita in an organised way. He built 108 temples and wrote more than 80 volumes of books. “We have more than 500 ISKCON temples in more than 160 countries”, he said.
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