ABSTRACT
The Indian-American Hindu community has tended to gather in urban areas and create temples for communal worship. That task is frequently complicated by the natural divisions of Indian religious life. The major division is between north and south India where two distinct calendars prescribe the major festivals to be celebrated on different days. A second major division is between Saivites (who worship Shiva as their main deity) and Vaishnavas (who worship Vishnu). Temples tend first to be built to accommodate either northern or southern worship and then to be dedicated to either an incarnation of Vishnu (such as Rama, Krishna, or Venkateswara) or Shiva. It is easier to accommodate Saivites at a Vaishnava temple and vice-versa, but difficult to accommodate both northern and southern schedules for festivals. In those cities with the larger Indian communities, several temple complexes will generally be built to accommodate the major types of Hindu temple worship, and often sectarian temples (Shaktaite, Swaminarayan, Krishna Consciousness) will appear.
