FURSTENFELDBRUCK, GERMANY, June 5, 2023 (BR24, Google translated from German): The Tamil community in southern Bavaria celebrated the one-year anniversary of their Sellapillaiyar church in Fürstenfeldbruck on Sunday with a temple festival and a parade. The focus of worship: the elephant-headed God Ganesha. The Sellapillaiyar Hindu temple, whose one-year anniversary was celebrated on Sunday, is located directly on the S-Bahn tracks in the Fürstenfeldbruck industrial park. But when you enter the temple – without shoes, of course – you are in a different world. In the early morning only a few women and men are there, they are preparing the offerings for the later puja, the Hindu service.
“No matter what we start with, the first thing, whether it’s a test, whether it’s building a house, we pray first to God Ganesha and that’s why He’s our most important God and that’s why we’re doing this today,” says Lerai Dharmakulasinghamth, who came from Munich for the service. The unveiling of the last statue of Ganesha is the highlight of today’s puja – also the increasing volume of calls, drums and nadeswaram, a kind of horn, betrays it. Hundreds of people gather in the temple room. More than 10,000 Hindus live in Bavaria State in Germany alone. Today, believers have traveled as far as Switzerland to attend this special ceremony because only once a year Ganesha leaves his temple and is carried out on a magnificent chariot. Anyone who sees the chariot on the street stops, many surprised: “I’m totally amazed now, at first I thought I’d now been posted to India,” says a woman who just wanted to pick someone up from the S-Bahn . “Super nice,” says another: “It’s great, it’s like a piece of vacation for us.”
https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/wie-in-indien-tempelfest-im-gewerbegebiet-in-fuerstenfeldbruck,TgEeI1F
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