Over the last several days Nirvani Nilakanthanatha has been working to repair the walkway that leads from Kadavul Temple towards the Media Studio. Over the last several years this part of the walkway has been broken and lifted by one of the palms around the temple tank. The palm here is one that was removed recently because of the damage and also because it was a public safety hazard for those visiting the temple.

After Sawing into the rootball to reclaim the sidewalk, Nirvani removed the old, broken quartzite pieces and cleaned up the carpet of roots that had grown under them. He is now nearly complete with the final placement and laying of the new quartzite. Om Namah Sivaya.

A slightly belated post about a recent visit to the Aadheenam by Kanda Alahan who, along with his brother Adi, helped out our in the woodshop for a time.

This morning Sadasivanathaswami received the photo above of a circular granite base from Thurai Rajasankara in Bengaluru. It's part of a massive push the team there is making. Paramacharya wrote a note to the team that is responsible for the bronze masterpieces, and we thought you would like to look in on the conversation:

Aoha, one and all!

Our team in India is working 20 hours a day to get many things ready for a December shipment of multiple containers. It's quite a push of willpower on their part. 

Just now we received a photo from India of a base completed yesterday, and sharing it with you brings much joy this morning.

Basically, we have designed a simple base for all of the bronze masterpieces we are doing together (team effort can do magical things!). Each bronze sculpture will sit atop a six-inch high granite base, carved with a rough, contemporary texture. This round one is unusual, most are more rectangular. The round one is made to hold the silpi shown below sharpening a chisel on a solid metal brick. The whole effect will be compelling, the metal you are all producing married to the stone from the same quarry as Iraivan carved by the same team. Perfect!

One of the benches on the property broke, so our very own Sadhaka Tejadevanatha made a new one.

The monastery has been working on upgrading its hurricane protection system for some time. The Siddhidata Kulam is suiting up and battening down the hatches on the project. Soon all 200+ vulnerable windows and openings we have around the main building will be hurricane-proof. This is a huge job and requires months of planning.

We've recently received these photos from our carving site in Bengaluru. Great progress is being made on Iraivan Temple's parameter wall and the red granite pots which will sit atop it. Because these stones are not part of the main temple structure, the siplis can utilize small electric tools which are greatly speeding up their masterful work. The main pieces being carved are the wide panels which display carved scripture, the ornate pieces which go between them and the previously mentioned granite pots.

A couple of weeks ago, Doug, our excellent hired worker, was planning out some closet shelving for the slipi house, which he is helping to renovate. That's the building the slipis live in when they come to Kauai. In passing, he consulted with Acharya Kumarnathaswami as to whether he should buy MDF (press-board) or plywood for them. Acharya offered to provide solid boards instead from our large stock of local woods, milled and dried here at the monastery. 

The option that jumped forward was to use some of the wide monkeypod boards that came from a tree that arborists gifted to the monastery after removing it from the side of the Shell station across the highway from Coco Palms hotel. The tree was enormous, and its antiquity was revealed by the fact that it was already a large tree when captured in a photo taken at Elvis Presley's wedding. 

Over the retreat Acharya chose the boards from a pile made from a single log just the right length, so wastage would be close to zero. Fourteen shelves were needed, 10 of them 19 inches wide and 4 at 16 inches; all about 5 feet long. 

Since our thickness planer accepts a maximum 15" width, Acharya ripped the wide planks down the middle, ran them through the planer and then edge glued them back together. (Sometime in the future, we hope to get a 20 inch planer!)

Step two was to hand plane the machined surface. Step three: sand with 6" orbital sander. Step four, apply sanding sealer, and Step 5 brush on one coat of lacquer. Eighteen man hours after the ambitious offer was made, the shelves stood ready to be installed.

After many moons the eloquent carpentry and stone work in the Media Studio Cave Entryway has finished. This was a creative collaboration between the monks (design), Kanda Alahan in California (fabrication of the roof shrine, plus innovations), and Bhani Karthigesu in Singapore (engineering the masterful and colorful wooden sculptures in North India). The result is simply magical, providing a moment of blessing and change of consciousness as one moves from the tropical gardens into the more-akashic-than-physical space of the Media Studio. Jai to teamwork!

We unpacked the five bronzes of God Siva yesterday, revealing their astonishing detail. No wonder it took years for the craftsmen in South India to makes these murthis. Five forms each in five metals, to be placed in five niches on the outisee of the Iraivan garbhagriham.

Meantime, we thought you would love to see them, to enjoy the high level of sculpting that was achieved and a few words about this traditional depiction of divinity.

Most Saivites understand that Siva has five powers: creation, preservation, dissolution and the dual graces, concealing and revealing. Those who read our philosophically rich July, 2012, Insight Section, "Five Powers of Siva, Sadasiva in the Agama Scriptures," will have encountered the profundity of this understanding of God (bit.ly/Panchasiva). In Iraivan Temple, these five powers are enshrined as five forms of Siva in bronze, two-foot-tall statues installed in niches around the outside of the central sanctum: Sadyojata, Vamadeva, Aghora, Tatpurusha and Ishana. 

Sadyojata, "quickly birthing" is Brahma, element earth, color white and denoted by Na in the Panchakshara Mantra, Namasivaya. Vamadeva, "pleasing," is Vishnu, element water, color saffron and letter Ma. Aghora, "non-terrifying," is Rudra, element fire, color blue-black and letter Si. Tatpurusha, "supreme soul," is Maheshvara, element air, color gold and letter Va. Ishana, "ruler," is Sadasiva, element akasha, color crystal and letter Ya.

These bronzes were commissioned from Ganapati Sthapati's Mahabalipuram worksite and took several years to complete under his careful direction. They finally and somewhat magically arrived on Kauai in November, 2014, right at the conclusion of the Mahasamadhi observances for Gurudeva. 

With the bulk of the Media Studio having been completed, a few final detailed projects remain. Though the list is short, these to-do's require ample time and skill to come to fruition. Two such projects are now wrapping up, and they happen to be some of most noteworthy additions to the building's near-finished look and feel: the mango wainscoting on the north wall and the entryway's lava rock.

With help from master-carpenter Jeff, the wainscoting on the north wall was fully created, assembled and finished in the woodshop, before being carried over the the building for a quick and easy installation. This is the mango wood from the tree that had to be cut down outside the Media Studio. It will live on as one the the space's most stunning features.

It has been a long process to properly prepare the entryway walls for the placement of lava rock. The two massive doors on either side had to be engineered to hold hundreds of pounds of weight. The left-side door leads to Arumuganathaswami's office and the right-side door leads to the building's restroom. Both doors are designed to blend into the lava rock walls. Brad, a master stoneworker, has been hired to fit the stones to perfection. He is creating beautiful seams in the doors and a balanced look around the two wooden shrines of both Gurudeva and Ganesha.