The World’s Largest Color Festival – Utah
Despite being situated in the global cradle of Mormonism (Utah, USA) the Hindu, Sri Sri Radha Temple plays host to the largest color festival in the world.
Built by local devotees of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (aka the Hare Krishnas), the temple brings a small slice of Hindu devotion to an area otherwise underrepresented in this way.
It all started when a man named Charu Das visited Utah in 1975. He was travelling through on a mission to spread word of the society through the sale of books.
He and his wife instantly fell in love with the landscape and eventually returned to Utah to settle permanently.
This culminated with the construction of the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple in 1998.
In addition to the grand hilltop temple, the grounds contain a large natural amphitheater with room for thousands of congregants to gather – an ideal location for the annual Holi festival which has grown in popularity year on year.
Known to most as the Festival of Colors, the event at the temple has become the largest such festival in the world with thousands of people showing up to throw brightly colored sand at each other.
Whether they partake in the spiritual side of Hinduism is another matter, but at least participants have some interesting images for their next Facebook profile picture update.
