The third tallest statue in the United States is that of Lord Hanuman! At a gala Pran Pratishtha The statue, named “Statue of Union,” was unveiled at an event on August 18 in the Texas city of Houston.

Regarding the choice of name for the statue, the official website states: “The Statue of Union will be the tallest Hanuman statue in North America, an embodiment of strength, devotion and selfless service. Hanuman united Sri Rama with Sita and hence the name Statue of Union.”

The statue is located at the Sri Ashtalakshmi Temple in Sugar Land, Texas. The website also states that the statue is intended to “create a spiritual epicenter where hearts find solace, minds find peace, and souls find a path to transcendence.”

It also states that “the project in its entirety is the vision of His Holiness Sri Chinnajeeyar Swamiji.”

“Let us bring the vision of North America’s tallest Hanuman statue to life and together continue to create a world full of love, peace and devotion,” it continues.

The tallest statue in the United States is the Statue of Liberty, which stands at 500 feet (151 meters). The second tallest is the Pegasus and Dragon statue (110 feet) in Gulfstream Park in Florida.

The Statue of Union is intended to replace the 91-foot-tall statue of Our Lady of the Rockies as the third tallest statue in the United States.

In other news, a carnival float featuring a Hindu temple at the India Day Parade in New York City sparked controversy, with several groups calling it anti-Islamic and demanding that it be removed from the event.

The chariot represented a temple to the Hindu god Ram that was inaugurated earlier this year at a site in Ayodhya, India. But the temple site has long been fiercely contested between Hindus and Muslims, and in the early 1990s a mosque there was razed to the ground by a Hindu fundamentalist mob.

Some organizations in the United States had written a letter to New York Mayor Eric Adams and New York Governor Kathy Hochul calling the float anti-Islamic and claiming it glorified the toppling of the mosque.

Groups that signed the letter included the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Indian American Muslim Council and Hindus for Human Rights.

“The presence of this float represents the desire of these groups to blend Hindu nationalist ideology with Indian identity, but India is a secular country,” the letter said.

Later, however, the tableau became part of the parade.

(With contributions from Reuters)