Mobile Damodar Temple of Durban

By Sukanti Radha dasi

Devotees are so creative in serving ISKCON around the world for different festivals. The holy month of Damodara is no surprise for yet another creative way of honouring Lord Damodar with a mobile Temple.

The engineering geniuses behind this amazing service are HG Govindaji Das and HG Anand Prabhu of Durban South Africa.

Govindaji das serves in various services for ISKCON in Durban. His most fascinating service is being in charge of the feeding section for Durban Ratha Yatra, ensuring over 10,000 plates a day for 4 consecutive days are served to the visiting community. As we all know Durban Ratha Yatra is the largest Ratha Yatra outside India.

The mobile Damodar Temple service is now 5 years and each passing year the mobile temple has undergone massive transformation. This year it was exceedingly successful to reach as many devotees due to lockdown. It could not have come at a better time to reach out to devotees in lockdown. Our Lord is so merciful to bring such creative ideas to the minds of the devotees so that they can serve him and at the same time, he can reach out to the devotees. Such is the loving exchange between the devotees and the Lord.

The mobile Damodar Temple is equipped with a fully functional temple for people to offer ghee lamp(provided free of charge) during this holy month. It has Srila Prabhupada’s books as well as other supportive books. A free fold up altar is given to every family to continue their ghee lamp offering at home for the rest of the month and sumptuous prasadam is offered to the visiting guests. No visitor is allowed without a mask & hand sanitized. The temple is health & safety approved with safety handrails to assist stepping into the temple. ISKCON is well known worldwide for respecting local governments protocol during the pandemic. And so is ISKCON South Africa in keeping with this protocol.

The mobile temple moves to different areas in Durban everyday for the whole month of Kartik. Kartik is the time when devotees around the world offer ghee lamp to the baby form of Krsna. Guests are warmly welcomed and given a good Krsna Conscious experience. They leave the temple with happy faces and content hearts. They are always looking forward to return the next day enquiring where the mobile temple’s next stop will be.

In these challenging times of Covid 19 many people are finding peace and reaching out to God for protection.

If you are a devotee of ISKCON Durban, please support this project. This is your official temple project. You can advertise it, tell people about it, encourage visitors to offer a ghee lamp here, and you can donate towards this service so that it can go on every year. This amazing service is part of the Sri Sri Radhanath Temple in Chatsworth. Another thing you can do is when you meet the team of devotees serving on the mobile temple, please offer them dandavats and tell them ‘thank you’ for serving Srila Prabhupada in the month of Kartik! Next year the service will be having another transformation and a naming ceremony. So watch this space!