Temple Services Guidelines

Purpose

HTOS provides services at the temple and outside the temple to meet the needs of the community. While certain archanas and scheduled pujas at temple don’t need any prior confirmations, many of the others need a confirmation of priest’s availability and in some cases, temple availability. The confirmation has to happen before a devotee signs up and makes the donation for the service. This document provides guidelines to ensure that a devotee can schedule and obtain the service in a smooth manner.

Service Scheduling Guidelines

At HTOS, it is important that the temple is open and priest’s services are available during the stated operating hours, except for any HTOS approved closures or openings. To meet this requirement, priest’s services other than regular archanas and scheduled pujas, are not available during temple operating hours.

Basic Guidelines

  1. Acceptable
    1. Request for service outside of temple operating hours (accounting for any travel time to/from the venue) is typically acceptable unless it is on a special festival or puja day.
  2. Not Acceptable
    1. Request for service during temple hours (including any travel time to/from the venue) is not accepted.
    2. Request for service on the temple’s holiday (typically Wednesday) is not accepted unless the priest has worked out an exception on his own accord.
    3. Requests for certain services (ex: death rituals) that require the priest to be away from temple ALL DAY even though the timing of the event is outside of temple hours is not accepted.
    4. For exceptions, please read the Accommodation Guidelines below.

Accommodation Guidelines

If the request for service cannot be accepted as described above, then the following guidelines shall be followed. HTOS will do the best to meet the needs of the community; however availability of the requested service is not guaranteed.

  1. Please make the request at least 7 days in advance. If less, the request cannot be accepted.
    • For death rituals, the 7-day requirement might be hard to meet. In that case, send in the request and HTOS will follow up on the request.
  2. Send your request to the priest or one of the HTOS EC Team members.
  3. HTOS will strive to respond within 2-days of your request to let you know if we can accommodate the request.
  4. If you haven’t heard back within 2-days, please resend and reach out to your contact at HTOS immediately.

Before Signup

The Services page provides a list of all services offered by HTOS. Before signing up and making the donation payment at the provider link, please ensure the following:

  1. You have reviewed the basic guidelines and accommodation rules above.
  2. You have confirmation from your HTOS contact that the service can be performed at your requested date and time.
  3. Know that Donation, Provider Fees and Payments cannot be refunded.

After Signup

If your need for service changes, then please follow the guidelines below:

  1. If you still need the service but the date/time has changed, please follow the same guidelines as described above for your new date/time. Small changes in timings are acceptable as long as the priest’s availability at the temple during the operating hours is not affected.
  2. If you don’t need the service anymore, let the priest know. Your payments for donations and any tips/fees cannot be refunded. HTOS thanks you for your patronage and support.

V1.2 – Feb 2026