Source: The Boston Globe
On September 3, 2005 The Boston Globe reported, "This week, as vacationers lolled on beaches and observed other rituals before summer's unofficial end, a startlingly different ritual from another part of the world began a few miles off the Massachusetts Turnpike. Hindu priests at Sri Lakshmi Temple in Ashland tended fire altars, dedicated to various deities, in the temple's parking lot. The priests chanted mantras from the Vedas, the oldest scriptures of any major religion, summoning divine power. On Monday, pots of water made holy by this power will be taken in procession to the roof of the temple and inside the sanctum and sprinkled. This reconsecration of the temple, called Kumbhabhishekam, will be performed during a special window from 9 a.m. to 9:50 a.m. before a crowd that could reach 2,000... With the reconsecration, Sri Lakshmi Temple -- whose organizers borrowed a Knights of Columbus hall for prayer during the late 1970s before raising money to build their own place of worship -- reaches a milestone of longevity, signaling the vibrancy of the Indian community in Boston that it serves."