Sri Sivasubramaniar Temple

Founded in 1994 by Switzerland’s growing community of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, the Sri Sivasubramaniar Temple occupies a converted former factory building on the banks of the Sihl river in Adliswil, an industrial town just south of Zürich. In its early years the temple held poojas only on Fridays; as the community established itself and raised funds, it installed metal (panchaloha) images of its deities in 2000 and expanded to a daily evening service, with fuller ceremonial schedules — morning, noon, and evening pujas — on Tuesdays and Fridays. The temple is dedicated primarily to Murugan under his name Sivasubramaniar, alongside Shiva, Ganesha, and the goddess Rajarajeswary Ambal.

With an estimated 30,000-35,000 people of Sri Lankan Tamil origin living in Switzerland, roughly 20,000 of them in canton Zürich, the temple has grown into a major cultural and religious hub for the community, commonly described as the country’s largest and best-known Hindu temple. Its Thai Pongal harvest festival in mid-January is its single busiest day of the year, while an August procession in honor of Lord Murugan draws several thousand participants through the surrounding streets — alongside Maha Shivaratri, Deepavali, Vinayaka Chaturthi, Navaratri, and celebrations for Ayyappan, all part of its annual festival calendar.