This stuccoed concrete-block temple, richly decorated with traditional Hindu imagery, was completed by artisans invited from India by Jackson’s small Hindu community, who began settling in Mississippi in the 1960s, primarily to teach at Jackson State University. In 1990, the Hindu Temple Society of Mississippi built a concrete-block building, which is now behind the temple and serves as a fellowship hall. The current temple reflects the growth in membership from 100 to 500 families.
The imposing form incorporates the architectural principles of Vastu Shastra, which reflect beliefs on how nature’s laws affect physical spaces and, through them, the inner self. A high wall surrounds the temple complex, setting apart the sacred precinct. The gateway into the temple spaces, a tall pyramidal gopura (portal), rises in columned layers to rounded stone kalasams (finial). The tall gopura has denoted Hindu temples in India since the twelfth century. Small decorated domes dot the lower roof of the inner sanctuary, signaling shrines to demigods and goddesses. At the temple’s rear, and perpendicular to the axis, are three larger domes over the main shrines: two shikhara, or mountain-peak roofs, flank a vimana of the central deity’s shrine. Inside the temple itself the highly polished floor of black granite from Andhra Pradesh, India, is etched with a depiction of the cosmos that in its reflection of the ornate vaulted ceiling symbolizes the interaction of outer and inner, the physical and spiritual worlds.