Hinduism Australia’s fastest-growing religion
Under a bright orange sky,just before dusk,a stream of cars turns into a driveway off an industrial street in Carrum Downs.
You would not know it from standing in the street,but buried behind a nondescript cream building and lush,green gardens with roaming peacocks,is the largest Hindu temple in the southern hemisphere.
Each week,more than 1000 people travel from all over Victoria and beyond to worship at the Sri Shiva Vishnu temple,where the granite towers are engraved with images of Hindu gods,and the roof glows warm gold,like a halo in the night sky.
On a Hindu holy day,a Friday night or weekend,you can barely find a car park.
But on this balmy Thursday evening,mothers dressed in colourful saris arrive clutching their babies for a special blessing to mark the child’s 31st day on Earth,when a black dot,called a pottu,is placed on the child’s forehead for protection.
Inside the temple,bare-chested Hindu priests,draped in cream-coloured robes,bless babies. Other priests bathe sacred statues of Hindu gods and goddesses in cow’s milk.
There are idols of almost all Hindu gods,including Brahma,considered to be the creator of the universe. Photography and filming inside are prohibited to preserve the sanctity of the temple.
Platters of fresh fruit are offered to the gods,and incense burns. It is a morning and evening ritual of worship known as puja,believed to bring peace,happiness and prosperity.
The temple was built in the 1980s. Hindu Society of Victoria president Sabaratnam Kathirkhanthan says the community has grown from a congregation of a few hundred to many thousands,fanned by soaring rates of Indian and Sri Lankan migration to Melbourne.
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Thousands of Hindus are now raising families across Melbourne’s culturally diverse suburbs including Noble Park and Cranbourne,“Little India” in Greater Dandenong,and Wyndham,Werribee,Laverton and Point Cook in Melbourne’s south-west,the latter affectionately known by locals as “Mumbai Cook”.
Each November,the Hindu community celebrates the most important event of its cultural calendar:Diwali. The five-day festival is celebrated in schools,offices,parks and stadiums across the nation.
Thousands also brave the winter chill in July to celebrate the Ratha Yatra (Chariot Festival) at the Sri Shiva Vishnu temple,towing a chariot,which symbolises the pulling of God into one’s heart.
Hinduism is an immense set of beliefs and practices,with its history traced to a compilation of scriptures known as the four vedas.
A Hindu views the entire universe as God’s and everything in the universe as God.
“Even in the modern day,the Hindu tradition is thousands of years old,but we still follow the same traditions. We still pray for peace and harmony for all,” Kathirkhanthan says.
“What we practise,the discipline that we have in our religion,is something that my children,who were born here,are so very proud of.”
The rise of Buddhism
About 17 kilometres north of the Sri Shiva Vishnu temple are three Buddhist temples with floating Chinese pagodas,scattered along a busy stretch of road in Springvale in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs.
Each temple belongs to a different Asian community:Vietnamese,Cambodian and Chinese.
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WhenThe Age visits the Chinese Bright Moon Buddhist Society temple in Melbourne’s south-east one Sunday afternoon in late spring,a group of Buddhists and monks,dressed in brown robes,is quietly chanting in a hall for the spirits of the dead.
Last year,the temple,which was meticulously built over 15 years,wasgutted by a fire.
Yet,this has not stopped a dedicated group of Buddhists from coming together in the hall beneath the rubble and remains of the once gold and crimson temple to meditate.
It is an annual cultural event in the Buddhist calendar known as the Hungry Ghosts Festival. It is thought that during this time the gates of the afterlife open and allow spirits to roam the Earth.
The festival has an origin story,rooted in ancient Chinese history,about a monk who seeks help from the Buddha for his mother in the afterlife. It is said that when the monk’s mother died,she morphed into a hungry wandering ghost.
“So we feed those souls who have passed away without any family to follow in their footsteps and help them to get to the pure land,” Bright Moon Buddhist Society manager Duong Lang Anh says through a translator.
Inside the hall,food is laid out on tables for the souls of the departed;plates are brimming with coconut cookies,chocolate bars and fresh fruit to feed the stomachs of hungry spirits.
In the middle of the hall sits a gold and red painted statue of a smiling Jambhala,the god of wealth,which was charred by the fires.
The statue was the only monument not to be reduced to a pile of ash. Lang Anh sees Jambhala’s survival in the fire as a sign of good fortune to come.
“He brings wealth and abundance to his devotees,” she says.
The term Buddha means “enlightened one”.
“In Buddha’s eyes,when we are born,we bring something from the past,” Lang Anh says. “So this life is about bettering yourself.”
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She says a lot has changed since the Bright Moon Buddhist Society began in a residential garage Springvale in 1980.
A wave of migrants from India,Sri Lanka,Hong Kong,Thailand,Singapore,China and Vietnam has meant the congregation has swollen from a dozen people to hundreds.
A growing number of Christians and secular but spiritual Victorians are also coming there each week to meditate.
“Our temple is open to everybody,” she says. “Being a Buddhist,we are not only for ourselves. We open the door to everyone who comes into the temple.”
Deakin University’s Andrew Singleton says the conversion of people who were not born into Buddhism remains “infinitesimally small”.
“Buddhism probably has the highest proportion of converts,and that is because there’s quite a crossover between an interest in Buddhist philosophy and meditation practices,” he says. “But the numbers remain very low.”
Each morning,Lang Anh chants,and each day,she prays. “My prayers are not just for my family,but for the whole world,” she says. “I pray for the world to be calm,to be peaceful,and for everyone to be safe.”
Buddhism sustains her.
“It keeps my heart pure,” she says. “It helps me to see that everything in life has a higher meaning.”