Richmond Hill Hindu Temple (Hindu Temple Society of Canada)

The temple stands at 10865 Bayview Avenue in Richmond Hill. Step inside and one thing stands out at once: the presiding Sivasubramaniar faces west, which is rare, and he is a tall figure carved in blue granite. Valli and Devayani do not stand beside him; they have shrines of their own across the hall, looking east at him, a layout the sthapathi chose to fit the site while staying within the Agamas. A metal image of Arumugaswamy, six-faced and twelve-armed as he was when he defeated Suran, stands by the western wall.

Muruga is surrounded by a whole divine family. Varasiddhi Vinayakar, who began as a side shrine, is now a main shrine with his own flagstaff and festival. The Chandramauleeswarar lingam, veined with gold, was picked from the Ganga near Kasi by the Paramacharya of Kanchipuram, kept at his own altar and then given to this temple; Thiripurasundari stands to his right. Nataraja dances with Sivakami in a shrine whose vimana is covered in gold leaf. There are shrines of an eight-foot Venkateswara, Mahalakshmi, Andal, the Rama Parivar in its own enclosure, Sudarsana, Garuda, Durga as Mahishasuramardhini, Dakshinamurthy, Saraswathi, Satyanarayana and the Navagrahas. Facing Shiva are the four great Nayanmars, Appar, Sundarar, Manikkavasagar and Sambandar, and all twelve Alvars and Ramanuja are here too.

A few lovely customs have taken root. At night the temple keys are left at Bhairava's feet and collected from there in the morning. Devotees clap softly before Chandikeswarar. Families gather for the Satyanarayana puja on every full moon. On Vijayadasami children are started on their letters in a plate of rice at the Saraswathi shrine. Venkateswara is sometimes covered from head to foot in flowers for the Poolangi Seva.

In the late 1960s, Hindus of Sri Lankan and South Indian origin who had come to Canada from many parts of the world felt the need for a temple to worship together. In 1973 about ten trustees registered their Hindu Temple Society of Canada as a non-profit religious body, aiming to build and run a temple by the Agamas. For about ten years little moved. Immigration picked up in the 1980s, the society bought land in Richmond Hill, and the ground was consecrated in October 1983. Ganesa was installed on a temporary altar in 1984 and later moved to a prefabricated building. From then on the work was done through kar seva, the volunteer labour of men, women and children, and the society counts it the first Hindu temple built entirely this way. Work on the main building, designed in 1987-88, began the same year. V. Janakiramana Sthapathi, of the sculptor lineage that built the Big Temple at Thanjavur, drew the plans after consulting religious leaders, among them the senior Sankaracharya of Kanchi, and fifteen Indian sculptors worked with him. Murugan was installed in his present shrine on 2 July 1988, and worship in the main temple began. Two vimanas went up over the Murugan and Venkateswara shrines in 1992, with a Vimana Kumbabhishekam late that year. The Maha Kumbabhishekam of 30 August 2001 marked the end of construction. On 7 April 2002 the twelve Alvars and Ramanuja were consecrated together, a first for any temple in North America. At the 2012 Kumbabhishekam the Navagraha shrine was rebuilt with new images, new granite figures came to the Rama shrine, and the halls were repainted.

Devotees believe that a special puja holding the bronze Santhana Gopala on one's lap brings the blessing of a child. Saturdays, especially in Purattasi, have special pujas for Sani, and students crowd the Saraswathi shrine at exam time. These are matters of faith, and no outcome is promised.