c. 2004 Religion News Service

LOS ANGELES _ The online market for Hindu religious services is coming of age, with a plethora of Web sites now catering to the needs of the pious, offering them remote access to temples that have special significance on the Indian religious map.

The Web sites offer devotees the chance to have a priest perform pujas, or Hindu prayers, on their behalf at the temple of their choice. They also extend a host of other services, such as online payment for donations and virtual malls for religious products.

The remote religious requests are compatible with the Hindu belief system. Most gods and goddesses in the pantheon are accommodating about their devotees’ circumstances _ it is the intention that matters. As long as the devotee initiates the prayer, and as long as the priest makes that clear to the deity, a Hindu prayer holds good even in absentia.

Saranam.com was one of the first Web sites to recognize the existence of such a market. It was launched in 1999, after co-founder Mahesh Mohanan realized that visiting 20 temples in two days could be “extremely tiring.”

Today, the site offers prayer services at 160 Hindu temples across India. The site gets about 600 requests every month, and almost 40 percent of its users are in the United States.

Last year, Saranam.com had a turnover of more than 3 million Indian rupees (about $66,000). According to Mohanan’s estimates, more than 1.2 million people form the market for such services.

Interestingly, the Web site has also started getting requests for its services from people belonging to other cultures and traditions. “Now a significant number of regular customers are not Indian,” Mohanan said.

It seems, though, that people are more likely to turn to the gods when they want something from them.

“Pujas that are need-based are more in demand than pujas performed as part of regular worship,” Mohanan said.

“For example, pujas to Goddess Mahalakshmi, the bestower of wealth and prosperity, are more popular.”

The potential for Web-based prayer sites is huge. The 25 most popular temples in India attract about 200 million devotees every year, according to estimates provided by another such service, Blessingsonthenet.com.

Blessingsonthenet.com, a Mumbai-based portal, hosts the official Web sites of 16 temples, said Ramesh Iyer, senior manager for business development. It plans to increase that to 20 soon.

Iyer said the portal, which was launched in 2000, now gets about 10,000 page-views a day. It has about 6,000 registered users, not counting the traffic on the official temple Web sites.

Just as with Saranam.com, more than one-third of Blessingsonthenet.com’s traffic comes from the United States; almost one-third comes from India.

The portal has so far fulfilled more than 1,100 orders for prayers and donations at various temples. A prayer request at one of its temples can cost up to a few hundred dollars.

Both Iyer and Mohanan said requests for prayers tend to spike during special occasions.

“Donations and puja request are more on festivals like Navratri, Ganesh Chaturthi, Deepawali etc,” Iyer said. These are religious occasions on the Hindu calendar, although their significance sometimes is regional.

The Web sites keep the interest up through the year with the help of several ancillary religious services. Mohanan said his site has had “tremendous response” from people seeking homam _ a fire sacrifice ritual _ and astrology services and products.

KRE/JL END BANSAL