Several decades ago, a handful of Indian families gathered together to worship and celebrate Hindu festivals. These families nurtured a dream to build and maintain a full-fledged Hindu temple in Huntsville. Although it seemed a far-flung idea back then, over the years the Indian community grew and the Hindu temple Association held fundraisers to build the temple. Through patience and planning, the temple was established with the motto of “temple for all”. The Hindu Cultural Center of North Alabama (HCCNA) is a registered non-profit organization and was founded in 1995. Its mission is to promote spiritual and cultural upliftment for all relating to Sanatana Dharma and allied Hindu beliefs, while affirming the concept of global family. The current HCCNA Temple was consecrated in June 2005 and the deities were installed with an elaborate week-long Vedic ceremony conducted by priests and spiritually energized by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Swami Viditatmananda and other religious and community leaders. The deities installed in the first phase are Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra in the center as you enter the temple, Lord Ganesha on the left side and Lord Venkateswara on the right. Other deities were installed on all three sides of the temple in 2006 and later in elaborate Vedic ceremony. The deities were Ganesha, Durga, Karthikeya, Sri Mahalakshmi, Radha Krishna, Sri Saraswati, Ram Parivar, Navagrahas, Shiva Parvati (Lingaraj), Kali, Hanuman, Durga, Lords Mahavir and Parshwanath and Lord Buddha.
The HCCNA Temple now has huge space for praying and religious discourses. It also has a community hall, kitchen, dining facility and plenty of parking surrounded by beautiful landscaping. The community hall downstairs can be used as a social hall for religious and non-religious activities. It has a state-of-the-art sound system and a commercial kitchen for social fun
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