Sydney Hindu Festival and Temple Guide

Temples

Sydney has the largest Hindu population of any Australian city, and temples serve almost every tradition. The Sydney Durga Temple in Regents Park, consecrated in 2017, is dedicated to Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati and has a wedding hall and educational hall beneath the temple. Western Sydney — Parramatta, Blacktown, Toongabbie, Westmead and the Hills — has many more temples and community centres serving North Indian, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Bengali and Fijian Indian families, and the Sri Venkateswara Temple at Helensburgh, south of the city, is a long-standing place of pilgrimage.

Little India

Harris Park, next to Parramatta, is known as Sydney's "Little India": its streets are lined with sweet shops, restaurants, grocers and stores selling puja items, saris and jewellery, and it is at its busiest in the weeks before Diwali.

Festival season

• Navratri — garba and dandiya nights in community halls, and golu displays in Tamil and Telugu homes.
• Durga Puja — Bengali associations hold pujas across the city.
• Diwali — temple celebrations, community melas and council-supported Diwali events in western Sydney.
• Holi — colour festivals in parks in March, at the start of autumn.
• Chhath — Bihari and Purvanchali families gather at lakes and beaches where permitted.

Festivals in the southern hemisphere

Hindu festivals follow the lunar calendar, not the seasons, so in Sydney Diwali falls in late spring and Holi in autumn. Sunrise and sunset — and therefore Chhath arghya and many puja timings — follow local time, with daylight saving from October to April. Use the Sydney panchang for local tithi and sunrise times.

See live listings: temples in Sydney.