Sat Ma­haraj

For sev­en con­sec­u­tive nights, end­ing on Au­gust 17, the Sant Na­gar Hin­du Tem­ple (SNHT), in the town of San­gre Grande, cel­e­brat­ed 75 years of its es­tab­lish­ment. Dur­ing the clos­ing decades of the 19th cen­tu­ry, In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers were brought to the area sur­round­ing San­gre Grande to work on the co­coa, cof­fee and cit­rus plan­ta­tions.

At the end of their in­den­ture­ship many set up roots, de­vel­op­ing their own homes and vil­lages, con­tin­u­ing in the prac­tice of their re­li­gion, which they were able to pre­serve. One such vil­lage which evolved due to the in­ter­nal mi­gra­tion of the In­di­ans in San­gre Grande was Sukhram Vil­lage.In 1938 the Hin­dus in this vil­lage erect­ed the first Hin­du tem­ple in north-east­ern Trinidad at the cor­ner of Eve­lyn Street and Ojoe Road, San­gre Grande, in a bid to sat­is­fy their grow­ing spir­i­tu­al and cul­tur­al needs.

Dur­ing the 1940s a Koutia was added. This took the form of an open carat shed, sup­port­ed by wood­en posts. The Koutia served as a con­gre­ga­tion­al hall where devo­tees usu­al­ly gath­ered to wit­ness cer­e­monies and rit­u­als.Un­til the 1940s the tem­ple was un­of­fi­cial­ly known as the Sukhram Vil­lage Tem­ple. It lat­er be­came known as the Shi­wala in the 1950s with the in­stal­la­tion of the Shi­va mur­ti by Dr Shar­ma from In­dia. Af­ter join­ing the Ma­ha Sab­ha it was de­cid­ed that the name would be the Sant Na­gar Hin­du Tem­ple.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers