Despite the exhibit at the museum, and despite the fact that the Islands are the publishing home to a major magazine for the English-speaking Hindu world (the color glossy Hinduism Today, with editorial offices on Kaua'i), the world's oldest faith group has barely registered on Hawai'i's religion Richter scale.

If it's one of the world's five major religions, one with a billion members worldwide, why is it so hard to pin down Hinduism in Hawai'i, the great melting pot?

The nature of Hinduism

Ruby Palchoudhuri holds the face for a Durga sculpture being erected at the Academy of Arts for a ceremony today.

Biswagit Chakraborty, an artist from India's West Bengal state, mixes clay the traditional way — with his feet. Photos by Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

That's partly by design.

"(Hinduism) is 10,000 things under one big umbrella. It's an amazingly complex conglomerate," said Paramacharya Palaniswami, editor of Hinduism Today. "... That's true of Hindu historically and Hinduism around the world. The whole history is dispersal."

The Western way may be to get organized, but Hinduism avoided that, he said.

"It revels in its disorganization," Palaniswami said. "There's no impulse in the Hindu psyche that we should make it one thing."

Because Hindus follow more than one god, they break into sets and subsets of belief structures. There is one divine essence with three main manifestations: Brahma the creator, Vishnu the sustainer/affirmer and Shiva the destroyer/restorer. Add to that hundreds of other gods who are considered part of this world.

Factor in the breadth of Hindu's most sacred text — particularly the Rgveda, the collection of 1,028 hymns with 10,552 verses grouped into 10 volumes — and it's easy to see why practices can vary and the umbrella can be so vast.

Hinduism in Hawai'i

The San Marga Iraivan Temple, in the hills above Wailua, Kaua'i, is still six or seven years from completion, but a Hindu ceremony marks each stage of its "birth." The monks there consider the temple a living entity. Photo courtesy of Paramacharya Palaniswami

Papia Sengupta, who sometimes helps Rama Nath Sharma with the puja, has watched this ceremony once a month for the last 17 years. (Well, she may have missed once, because of illness.) She's seen it grow more diverse.

While the Calcutta-born mother of two enjoys the diversity and the growth — at first there were just a handful of people and a borrowed monk from Kaua'i, today there's a regular leader and nearly 70 in attendance — she was among those who started the ritual, mostly for the sake of her children.

Back then, "We were a small community," she recalled. "We wanted our children to go to school, Girl Scouts, (be part of) the American culture. We supported that. But at the same time, we thought our children should have some of our culture, too."

That's not unusual, Palaniswami said.

"Everyone has his little place (when it comes to) history, ethnicity, geographic background," he said, but added, "They don't all try to make it one thing."

Hinduism is the biggest closed religion in the world: One must be born into it, adds Dipankar Sengupta, Papia's husband and the editor for the LOTUS newsletter. "Nobody can be converted, in the traditional sense."

However, there are some Hindu-related groups that do not follow India's caste system.

How many are here?

Rama Nath Sharma offers burning camphor at the end of the Hindu service at the Healing Stone in Wahiawa. Advertiser library photo • 2003

But as the member of the LOTUS, the Indian cultural and religious organization that started the Healing Stone puja, points out, it's not as if everyone comes out to be counted at Diwali, a five-day festival of lights that happens in November, the way Christians crowd churches at Christmas.

"(Hindus) don't have to go to temple," said Ramanathan, a professor of pharmacology at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa. "Almost all Indian families have their own place at home for worship."

So let's go at this another way.

When Palaniswami looks at the 100,000 circulation for his Kaua'i-based magazine, he notes that most subscribers are in large Mainland cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Other pockets of subscribers can be found in Texas, Florida and Northern California — "basically, anywhere educated, English-speaking Hindus have conglomerated," Palaniswami said.

How many are in the state that produces the magazine?

"There's 12," he deadpanned.

Then he laughed. "Really, it's pitifully small. Maybe we have 500 Hindus in whole state, many of them academics."

The numbers may be small, but some have big pull. Honolulu Academy of Arts patrons Indru and Gulab Watumull's names were bandied about not only at the museum, but also by LOTUS members as being major contributors to Indian causes.

Splinter groups

Foreman Shanmugam Sthapati, right, oversees stone masons. The granite is carved in India, then shipped to Kaua'i to be set into place. Advertiser library photo • July 30, 2003

Sister Roslyn, as she is called, has the gentle nature of a kindergarten teacher, so when she explains the festival's importance (it is a day of blessings and commitment to maintain good wishes for all brothers and sisters of humanity) as meditation tapes play, you almost want to lay your head on a pillow.

Sometimes, when looking for Hindus, you must seek outside the center circle.

Like Sister Roslyn's group, the Brahma Kumaris, there are other gatherings, such as meditation groups and those following concepts loosely based on Hinduism (see list). Some follow their own swamis (religious teachers). Some, like the Hari Krishna people, follow principles from the Veda (sacred texts) but not the caste system.

The mostly female Brahma Kumaris might ... kind of, maybe ... most closely fall under the heading of Shaktas, if you force Erik Larson, an instructor in mediation at Global Harmony House, regional office of Brahma Kumaris, to pick a heading.

Larson said the group connects thoughts with Shiva and uses that experience to become like the Shaktis (mostly female gods). It's a female-oriented group.

Nucleus elsewhere

O'ahu is used to being the center of attention, but when it comes to Hinduism in the Islands, the focus actually is on Kaua'i. There, the San Marga Iraivan Temple is being built stone by stone, each block of granite imported from India.

As with the Durga at the museum, inanimate objects can be worshiped as gods in Hinduism, once they've been infused with the spirit.

The temple is being brought to life, literally as well as spiritually. Its different stages marked by ceremonies, including a blessing of conception, stirring of the fetus, etc.

"We're creating a living entity," Kaua'i monk Palaniswami said, adding that the temple will require six or seven more years for completion.

Hindu pilgrims have been making their way to Kaua'i from all over the country, and Palaniswami believes that's just the beginning. Women in $5,000 saris get off a cruise ship in Nawiliwili and head up the hill to see the temple. Mainland doctors on O'ahu for a convention will pop over for a few days to worship with the 21 monks at 9 a.m. daily services. At the weekly visiting day of the temple, about 60 to 80 people can show up.

"It's a constant flow," Palaniswami said. "When the temple gets finished, we expect something more dramatic to take place."

However, he expects the temple to remain a small sanctuary of Hinduism, not a springboard for big growth.

And that's OK by him.

"We're monks, we meditate a lot," he said. "We came for the quietude. That's our purpose."