ADAMS TWP — Construction hasn’t been finished and there’s sawdust on the floors, but services have already begun in the Chinmaya Amarnath Hindu temple and community center at 358 Mars-Valencia Road.

On a recent Saturday, chief priest Dharmateja Nagalingam and second priest Tej Ponna were conducting morning rituals in the unfinished temple section of the 20,000-square-foot structure as individual worshippers stopped by for a brief prayer.

The temple contains three black granite statues, imported from southern India, representing Ganesha, the elephant-headed god; Lord Shiva, represented that morning by a black dome called a lingam, an anti-iconic representation of the god as the pointer to truth; and the goddess Paruati or Lalitha, the wife of Shiva.

The three deities are also attended by statues of their traditional mounts, a mouse for Ganesha, a bull for Shiva and a lion for Paruati.

The mission had a opening event Aug 17 to 20 outside in the building’s parking lot with the statues being installed in the temple at the ceremony’s culmination.

Nagalingam said Chinmaya Amarnath is an educational institute from India.

“It is knowledge based. It gives knowledge to children especially,” said Nagalingam.

There are over 300 missions around the world and 50 in the United States including one in Monroeville, said Satish Muluk, the president of the Chinmaya Amarnath in Monroeville and the newest mission in Adams Township.

Muluk said the decision to build a mission in Adams Township was because there was no room to expand at the Monroeville location.

“It’s one organization that governs both sites,” he said. “Our board decided we needed a new center. It turned out that a lot of our families lived in the North Hills.”

“Just like everything else, people get lazy. They don’t want to travel too far. We have to bring it to them,” said his wife, Visala Muluk.

Work began on the mission in May 2021 and is expected to be completed at the end of September.

The Muluks said they hope the mission will be ready in time for the Oct. 24 Diwali, or festival of lights holiday, one of the major festivals celebrated by Hindus.

Nagalingam said the Chinmaya Amarnath mission in Adams Township will draw Hindus from Bridgeville, Upper St. Clair, Wexford, Cranberry Township and Mars. Nagalingam said there are approximately 25,000 Hindus in the Pittsburgh area.

Nagalingam himself lives in Cranberry Township. He has been a priest for 15 years, coming to the United States from India in 2009.

The Chinmaya Amarnath missions, said Satish Muluk were the creation of Swami Chinmayananda, who established the first mission in 1952.

Originally a journalist from southern India, the future swami traveled to the foothills of the Himalayas to expose what he believed was a false swami.

Muluk said after two years of study with the swami, he became convinced of the validity of the swami’s teaching and began traveling India teaching and establishing the Chinmaya Amarnath missions.

The Chinmaya Amarnath mission bought the nine acres of land in Adams Township and then spent years raising the funds to build the $3.5 million structure, money all raised by members of the mission, Satish Muluk said.

The 20,000-square-foot building will contain 12 classrooms, the temple, a 400-seat auditorium, a commercial grade kitchen and a dining room that will hold 250, said Satish Muluk.

When completed, said Nagalingam, the building will host daily services in the temple and Sunday classes in its classrooms. Classes will cover Hindu philosophy, yoga, music and classical dance.

“Studying this philosophy is for the whole family, not just for parents to drop their kids off and go out but to stay and also study,” sad Visala Muluk.

Satish Muluk thinks the initial classes will have 260 students.

Muluk, a vascular surgeon with Allegheny Health Network, and his wife, Visala, an internist at the Pittsburgh VA Hospital, said the classes will help people with spiritual development according to Vedanta, the Hindu philosophy based on the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of India, but applicable to all people.

“People don’t understand how gods work in Hinduism. It’s not a polytheistic religion. It’s not even a monotheistic one. It embraces the ultimate unity of all things. God permeates all things,” said Satish Muluk.

“The purpose of Ganesha, Shiva and the rest is to give people ways that they can relate to divinity and reach that ultimate unity. The gods are stepping stones to the ultimate goal of universal unity,” he said.

Visala Muluk said the exterior of the building still lacks decorations around its windows and a dome on the roof.

“The dome will have a receptacle to hold precious metals to attract positive energy to the building,” she said.

She said one of the central tenets of Chinmaya Amarnath is community service.

“It’s all empty if you can’t convert it into something to help,” she said. “It’s producing more than we can use, giving out more than we take.”

“We teach our kids to give back to the community, especially since we became citizens,” she said. The mission donates to the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank and sends medical equipment to India.

She said the Adams Township mission hopes to conduct health fairs in its parking lot to help the people who live around the new temple.

“What we would really like to be is a valuable part of this community,” said her husband. He plans to reach out to other community groups such as Rotary clubs and offer the Chinmaya Amarnath as a meeting place.