A HINDU TEMPLE IN NEW YORK.
New York is to have a Hindu temple, the first, it is said, to be erected in the New World. The temple is to be part of the India Centre which the India Society is building on the site of a house formerly owned by a wealthy American toothpaste manufacturer at Riverside Drive. The centre will have an auditorium, library, art galleries, travel and lecture bureaus, a restaurant and studio apartments where Hindu customs and traditions may be observed in the midst of the pressure of the Western world. The sponsors include Professor Edwin Selig- man, Oswald Garrison Villard, Professor John Dewey, Dr. John Haynes Holmes and other distinguished Americans, in addition to Hindus. The Society was founded by Hari G. Govil, a Hindu who came, as a poor immigrant, to this country ten years ago.. Mr. Govil's original purpose in coming to America was to learn the efficient and hustling ways of the West so that he might carry their influence to his own people. Residence here, however, convinced him, he says, that the East, perhaps, had more to offer the West than the West had to give the East. So he has remained to interpret India to America. Hindus, he says, find difficulty in maintaining the life of the spirit in New York, but they can do it, and the India centre will help. YOUR NEW YORK CORRESPONDENT.
Previous page
