George Harrison pledged to help build a $1 million shrine to the Hindu god Krishna shortly before his death, it was revealed yesterday. The temple will be constructed on high ground near the banks of India's River Ganges, where Harrison's ashes are said to have been scattered.
The ornate structure will include a prayer hall where devotees of Krishna, facing east, can gaze out on a 30-foot-high statue of the god.
It is to be built at Varanasi, the holiest of Indian cities.
Along with the 6,000- square-foot temple, there will be accommodations for 100 monks and nuns and a guest house with 150 beds for pilgrims.
Krishna supporters say Harrison made his pledge when, pale and thin from cancer, he returned to Varanasi, where he first discovered Eastern mysticism in the 1960s, to bathe in the waters.
According to Hindu philosophy, a believer must touch the Ganges before death to be cleansed of his sins.
Prasann Atama, president of the temple, said, "If the lord has given George Harrison strength to help us, all well and good."
In 1973, Harrison bought a 400-year-old mansion and 17 acres of wooded grounds in British village of Letchmore Heath and gave it to the Krishna movement.