Thou­sands of peo­ple of all walks of life turned up for the fu­ner­al ser­vice at the home of Pan­dit Har­dath Ma­haraj of Cu­mu­to. Pan­dit Har­dath died at his home on Jan­u­ary 20 at the age of 82. He was cre­mat­ed at the Ca­roni Cre­ma­tion Fa­cil­i­ty.

Pan­dit Har­dath was the fa­ther of Al­der­man Kesh­war Ma­haraj, chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion; Pan­dit Hi­mal of the USA, Asha and Lali­ta of Eng­land.Pan­dit Har­dath re­ceived scores of awards, in­clud­ing the Cha­co­nia Medal Gold in 2011 for his ser­vice in na­tion build­ing and na­tion­al ser­vice.

Among the thou­sands in at­ten­dance at his fu­ner­al ser­vice were: Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Win­ston Dook­er­an, who hailed Pan­dit Har­dath as "a na­tion-builder." Al­so present were Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs Prakash Ra­mad­har; Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, Sen­a­tor Kevin Ram­nar­ine; Min­is­ter of Trans­port Chan­dresh Shar­ma; Sat­narayan Ma­haraj, sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS); and Ajeet Praim­s­ingh, cul­tur­al ac­tivist.

In a re­cent in­ter­view, Pan­dit Har­dath adept­ly re­called vers­es from sev­er­al of the Hin­du re­li­gious texts such as the Ra­mayana, Gi­ta, Up­anisahds, Hanu­man Chal­isa and theMa­hab­hara­ta.He had said that more than 25 mem­bers of the Ma­haraj clan were pan­dits "and when one sums up our to­tal in­volve­ment in Hin­duism, it may well be over 1,000 years in to­tal ser­vice to Hin­duism and Hin­du thought."

His late broth­er, Pan­dit Kr­ish­na of Ca­roni, who was Dhar­ma­charya of the SDMS for sev­er­al decades, had re­fused the Trin­i­ty Cross for re­li­gious rea­sons.Pan­dit Har­dath chalked up 70 years in the ser­vice of Hin­duism, and even up to the time of his death was still meet­ing peo­ple and giv­ing spir­i­tu­al ad­vice.He at­tend­ed St Mary's Col­lege to­geth­er with the late Arch­bish­op An­tho­ny Pan­tin.

Pan­dit Har­dath said that he was one of the ar­chi­tects in propos­ing to get then prime min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams, to de­clare Di­vali a pub­lic hol­i­day in 1966.He has devo­tees and god-chil­dren in all parts of the globe num­ber­ing "in the thou­sands."Pan­dit Har­dath had said that in Trinidad and To­ba­go peo­ple prac­tise Hin­duism with great fer­vour, dis­ci­pline and stead­fast­ness. "Hin­dus from all parts of the world ad­mire our in-depth un­der­stand­ing and sanc­ti­ty and san­i­ty in the pur­suit of our re­li­gion.

"We can teach the world about tak­ing Hin­duism to an­oth­er lev­el of con­scious­ness and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, and our young pan­dits are mov­ing Hin­duism to an­oth­er lev­el."They con­tin­ue to get in­volved in se­ri­ous re­search and ed­u­ca­tion in Hin­duism."He had not­ed that Di­vali re­mains one of the mas­ter­pieces of Hin­duism in T&T and was brought here when our fore­fa­thers came in 1845 and be­yond.

"All of us, of what­ev­er re­li­gious affin­i­ty, con­tin­ue to pray for the re­demp­tion of our souls, so that we will merge with the Great Soul, which is the goal of life," he had said.Pan­dit Har­dath had high prais­es for the late Bhadase Sagan Ma­haraj, pres­i­dent of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha for "his wis­dom, ca­pac­i­ty for giv­ing Hin­duism a re­newed out­look in the 1950s, and for the con­struc­tion of a net­work of pri­ma­ry schools and oth­er so­cial and cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties."