It’s Tuesday afternoon and I am standing outside the Arya Samaj temple in downtown Dar es Salaam. Around me are the sounds of the city: the buzzing of motorbikes, the shuffling feet of pedestrians, the trundle of buses making their way to the BRT station located just in front. Soon, the person I am waiting for appears: Dhirubhai Chudasama, the priest of the temple, a short, smiling man in a grey checked shirt.
Dhirubhai presides over the first and only Arya Samaj temple to have been built in Dar es Salaam. Erected in 1911, it is also one of the city’s oldest-surviving buildings. A monotheistic Hindu reform movement, Arya Samaj (Hindi for ‘noble society’) was established in 19th-century Bombay and an estimated eight million worldwide practise the faith today. But its founder, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, didn’t live to see his denomination proliferate. In 1883, he was tricked into drinking milk laced with shards of glass and died one month later, on the morning of Diwali. Nevertheless, by 1903, a branch had emerged in East Africa, where the South Asian population was rising fast. Britain’s colonial government had earlier decided to build a railway from Mombasa to Kampala (Wol May 2020), almost exclusively recruiting its Indian subjects to work the line. As they all settled across the region, Saraswati’s devotees contributed money to build temples like the one I’m visiting today: a crumbling, colourful chunk of India on Tanzania’s glittering coastline.
The temple is located in Dar’s Kisutu ward, a designated ‘Asian zone’ under British rule, which today reflects the farrago of architectural styles and cultural references that characterise East Africa’s urban landscape. On one side, facing the harbour, is St Joseph’s Metropolitan Cathedral, built in a Gothic style by German settlers between 1897 and 1902. Meanwhile the historic Old Boma building, rendered in coral stone by the sultan of Zanzibar in 1867, is less than a kilometre away. A layered example of colonial architecture, the temple itself – like the surrounding neighbourhood, city and country - resists easy categorisation. Two buildings are housed within its compound. Nowadays disused as a place of worship, the first is a classic example of Swahili architecture: a squat, symmetrical, two-storey structure whose off-white façade, brise- soleil and corrugated metal awning overlook the bustling street below. On my arrival, Dhirubhai opens the building’s aged cerulean doors and bids me enter.
Inside, we pass through a formal entryway and emerge into a large hall painted cream, with colourful chequered floors and more sky-blue doors and window frames. The temperature is cool, religious icons line the walls and brown leather chairs sit behind a table piled high with tomes in Hindi and Gujarati. ‘These are our holy texts,’ Dhirubhai tells me, alluding to copies of Saraswati’s Satyarth Prakash (‘The Light of Truth’), before walking me across a courtyard to the second building, erected in 1976 to accommodate the temple’s growing membership.
Outside this haven, however, it was a fraught period for South Asians in Tanzania. During the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution, as Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah was overthrown, they were the target of widespread looting and violence, as were Arab citizens. A few years later – long after Zanzibar and Tanganyika unified to form Tanzania – the government required anyone living there permanently to acquire citizenship. Roughly half of the South Asian population left, partly because they feared another Zanzibar-style uprising and partly due to the complexities of colonial administration. Many held UK passports, and with no legal provision for dual nationals in their newly created home country, a large proportion chose to migrate rather than forfeit British citizenship. For those that remained, temples like the Arya Samaj became a sanctuary.
We remove our shoes and climb the stairs to the temple, located on the first floor. It’s even cooler than the first building, and quieter too. The sounds of the city have melted away. All we can hear is the cawing of crows. The colour scheme has shifted to green, blue and red and, in place of brown leather upholstery, a string of white plastic chairs lean against the walls. In the centre is a fire pit, where Arya Samaj members gather to worship as Dhirubhai leads them in prayer.
The room retains many original features. Its wooden shutters are decayed with age while its concrete floors have been scuffed by nearly five decades of use. On the walls, more paintings and photographs: of Saraswati himself, of the Hindu philosopher Swami Vivekananda and of Hindu deities Krishna, Shiva, Brahma and Rama. Excerpts from the four Vedas - the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and the Atharvaveda – are written on the walls in Sanskrit. One, the Vishwani Deva mantra, invokes the sun god Savitr to remove misfortune, while the Hiranyagarbha Sukta extols Brahman as the creator of the universe. Visitors often read these red, hand-painted words aloud as they sit around the crackling fire. Others peruse the Bhagavad Gita and the Mahabharata, arranged on a table at the front of the room, while the most pious recite passages from memory. In the temple’s early days, Vedic priests would travel from India to lead special prayers from a wooden platform at the front of the room, presided over by a large ‘Aum’ symbol daubed on the wall above them.
Today, a mere seven low, wooden stools are arranged around the fire pit. Asked whether there are enough seats to accommodate the temple’s worshippers, Dhirubhai’s eyes grow sad. He tells me: ‘Membership has dwindled. People have moved away from Dar es Salaam. They live elsewhere now. In addition, many of the older members who joined the temple long ago have died.’ He pauses briefly, then unexpectedly begins to laugh. ‘Also, people like going to the city’s big Hindu temple, because they give worshippers free food every day.’
Much has changed since Arya Samaj first came to the city. British colonialism has come and gone; the South Asians who landed here have left or established deeper roots; and today, rather than welcoming priests from afar, Dhirubhai leads his congregation alone. We walk back to the original temple, and the sounds of Dar return. I think about all the worshippers who have walked this same path and how, partly thanks to this temple, they found home in this corner of East Africa.
A version of this article also appeared in the January 2025 issue of ‘The World of Interiors’. Learn about our subscription offers. Sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter, and be the first to receive exclusive stories like this one, direct to your inbox
