Temple in the Sea

In Waterloo, Trinidad and Tobago, there is a Hindu temple called the Temple in the Sea. In 1952, Sewdass Sadhu built the first temple in the Gulf of Paria. Randal Rampersad renovated the temple and reopened it in 1995. Many Indians arrived in Trinidad and worked as indentured workers on plantation sites around the country between 1845 and 1917, thanks to the development of a labor indentured system. Sewdass Sadhu, an indentured servant, erected a tiny temple facing the Gulf of Paria on land owned by The Tate and Lyle Sugar Company in the 1930s. The estate management asked Sadhu to dismantle the shrine five years later because it was not his land, but he refused. Sadhu was sentenced to 14 days in prison and fined 100 pounds for refusing to remove the temple, which was thereafter demolished.

Sadhu erected the shrine after his release from prison, believing that colonial governments did not control the sea. Sadhu began transporting stones, cement, and sand from the island on his bicycle in 1947, unloading them at the island's shoreline to extend the island's limits offshore. Sadhu erected another temple near the Gulf of Paria after constructing the rocky road. The temple and the rocky route into the gulf were constructed in 1952.

After Sadhu's death in 1970, the temple in the water deteriorated due to high tides and a lack of human care. The Hindu Prachar Kendra began repairing the land that connects the temple to the island. Under the leadership of Randal Rampersad, a third-generation Trinidadian of indentured Indian ancestors, the temple was renovated and reopened in 1995. In 1995, the temple was dedicated to marking the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first indentured laborers from India. The roof of a Shiva temple that today exists on the same site as Sadhu's temple was erected with relics from the original temple in the sea. The restored temple is 100 yards farther out into the sea than Sadhu's original temple.

Location: Waterloo, Trinidad