Mission accomplished

Named in honour of Shrimad Rajchandra, late 19th-century self-realised saint, poet, philosopher and reformer of Jainism, the Shrimad Rajchandra Mission was founded by devotee Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshji in order to pass down the spiritual legacy. Today, the mission operates through more than 200 centres across six continents. On a quiet hill outside Dharampur in Southern Gujarat is its international headquarters, Shrimad Rajchandra Ashram, which has been under construction since 2014, with its Raj Sabhagruh satsang and meditation complex opening in December 2023.

Trustee Raman Tikka has been involved with the Shrimad Rajchandra Mission since 2001 and was selected to oversee the development of what was previously a 225- acre barren site. “We had to build the entire infrastructure from the ground up: roads, electricity, water – everything – to realise our plans for the spiritual complex, providing a marble temple, an auditorium, a meditation centre and open-air amphitheatre with a 10m statue of Shrimad Rajchandra-ji,” explains Tikka. Around the periphery is housing for 6,000 people – permanent residents who help to run the ashram and visitors taking part in retreats – plus a large dining complex. “We have an enlightened master who has provided sincere spiritual seekers with this beautiful ashram, both of which are very conducive to spiritual development. We are a spiritual organisation that invites members of all faiths who seek to attain the ultimate truth. One of the most important foundations of Jainism is to be open to all faiths.”

Tikka has spent around eight years onsite coordinating the construction. “At its peak we had at least 15 prime agencies onsite, including building contractors, designers, architects, HVAC [heating, ventilation and air conditioning], MEP [mechanical, electrical and plumbing] and audiovisual services,” he says. The ashram has its own AV department which produces films and music, filming and recording all discourses by Pujya Gurudevshri and sharing them on its YouTube and social media channels.

“We have a studio in the ashram and one in Bombay, and our team members from the AV department have gathered experience by attending exhibitions and travelling all over the world, so they know the market and the brands,” continues Tikka. “Of course, when a project of this size and scale came up, everybody was interested to participate, so we invited the leading brands to present their designs and looked at the reliability of the equipment and what the level of support and after-sales service was in India.”

This was of particular importance when it came to constructing and equipping the Raj Sabhagruh satsang and meditation centre, an architecturally striking structure designed to resemble a lantern, which houses a 5,000-capacity auditorium with a meditation hall situated above it, a library, two multipurpose halls and several classrooms where multiple programmes can be held simultaneously. The complex can house 10,000 people at its peak capacity.

“The most important criteria for us in the auditorium was speech clarity; our master gives live discourses here at least seven to eight days per month, and we have several one-week festivals throughout the year for Diwali, New Year and so on,” explains Tikka. The intelligibility issue was complicated by the fact the auditorium is circular, with a meditation chamber situated above it. A search to find an acoustic consultant was resolved by Andy Munro, who has been active in studio design in India since an initial project at Mumbai’s Famous Studios in 1995. Now largely retired, Munro was backed up by the team from Munro Acoustics India headed up by Kapil Thirwani, working closely with Kapil Gupta from the project’s architectural firm, Serie Architects. The final auditorium design had been finalised: a cylindrical drum housing the auditorium and meditation chamber above, with a ceiling above the auditorium forming an inverted lotus.

“We met with the clients, mainly Raman Tikka, to discuss the requirements to overcome the acoustic hurdles due to the shape, and to provide an electroacoustic design of the space, which was to be used for religious music concerts,” explains Thirwani.

Measurements were carried out at a Mumbai auditorium to determine the AV requirements of the auditorium, while Andy Munro worked on the parameters for the structure’s shape and size, to provide concert hall-standard specifications. Together with Munro acoustic consultant Vignyan Beera, Thirwani worked on the acoustic parameters while Cyril Thomas conducted 3D electroacoustic modelling in EASE, with Utkarsh Naidu and Thirwani figuring out the electroacoustic design and signal flow of the spaces.

Custom-designed Munro diffusors were mounted on the side walls to reduce energy hot spots in the centre of the circular space, to control the RT and direct-to-reverb ratio. Lateral energy formation was avoided by directing energy to the ceiling, for which Munro designed a massive membrane trap. “Every element was simulated and placed in our grand model,” continues Thirwani. “When the scale is so huge, costs – including services, treatment and finishes – just spiral, so our inhouse architectural team worked closely with Serie to build the complex in record time and on budget.”

“Andy was able to meet the architect’s requirements to come up with something aesthetically beautiful,” confirms Tikka. “The inverted lotus ceiling was the biggest challenge; the ceiling construction took about 18 months, and we had to raise a scaffolding and build a platform to give the workers ground zero at 19m.” Innovative Systems and Solutions Pvt Ltd (ISSPL) was initially hired in 2020 as a consultant to evaluate the design for the client’s requirements. Six months in, the company was awarded the contract for AV integration across the entire complex.

“The first building we worked on was the dining complex, optimising the design and switching the back end to Cloud Electronics with Biamp and Powersoft amplifiers with Bosch speakers,” explains ISSPL CTO, Bhavin Sureliya. “A Cloud Z8MK4 zone mixer is handling the matrixing of 16 separate zones which can be used individually or combined. Each zone can be used for large gatherings; there are mic inputs and connectivity. The main PA is for the spiritual background music played during meals. We’ve used a network player for the daily playlist, which any of the sevas [volunteers] can operate on their mobile phones.” Networking is in place to connect the dining hall to the main auditorium in the future.

When the dining hall was underway, ISSPL started work on the 10,000-capacity outdoor amphitheatre, installing a five per- side system of Tannoy VLS 30 concentric beam steering column array speakers with Turbosound frontfill speakers and subwoofers in cardioid mode, a Behringer mixer and Lab Gruppen amplifiers, all sourced from Indian distributor, Alphatec. ISSPL also deployed a Dante-enabled AVoIP solution based around two Q-SYS Core 110f DSPs, an Allen & Heath SQ-5 mixing console and QSC AD-S162T column array loudspeakers in the white marble, 108-pillar Shri Mahavir Praasad temple.

Meanwhile, work on the auditorium had begun. “We already knew how the system needed to perform and what functionality needed to be achieved, but we still had to bid for the tender along with lots of other interested parties,” continues Sureliya. With the tender awarded to ISSPL, the process of deciding on a main audio system began. Enter Carlos Sallaberry, who’d recently joined Adamson as head of education and applications engineering for APAC. “This was a huge project, and the tender was handed to me around March 2022,” he says. “I came to India for my first Palm Expo show and visited the site, which was still under construction, but you could see how massive it was going to be.” Receiving designs from Munro Acoustics in EASE and SketchUp software, Sallaberry began to design an Adamson system which was first based around S10 line array cabinets and quickly moved up to E12s. “They wanted the big system, so our distributor, Sonotone, arranged for a demo, comparing both models,” he says.

Once the model was confirmed and the tender awarded, Sallaberry got to work on finessing the system – a challenge as the proscenium still wasn’t built – with Adamson systems engineer Jochen Sommer in Germany and applications engineer Jeremiah Karni at the HQ in Canada assisting with CAD drawings. Other challenges included architectural requirements for the speakers to be entirely concealed, resulting in a long search for fully transparent acoustic fabric, and an extremely tight space around the proscenium to install the large speakers. However, an L-C-R system of three hangs of Adamson E12 – nine per array – have been flown into very tight spaces in the proscenium. Four hangs, each of three E219 subwoofers, have also been flown and configured in a cardioid (front-back-front) configuration to minimise low-end bleed onto the stage.

“Because we were very limited in space, we complemented the bottom coverage with four IS10P point source boxes rather than extending the hang with more line source enclosures,” explains Sallaberry. “We wanted to guarantee that the noise behind and above the stage was kept to a minimum so there are no low frequencies that would interfere with the presenter’s microphone. A lot of treatment was done within the proscenium and onstage to absorb those low-end frequencies that could potentially have been an issue.”

The team at Munro Acoustics were in favour of an L-C-R FOH system behind the acoustically transparent proscenium to provide a physical centre reinforcement. “This would have a perfect visual and aural synchronisation as the guru sits in the centre of the stage and a phantom centre doesn’t work for devotees sitting way off axis,” explains Thirwani. “We finetuned the design with Carlos and Andy to add the front and stage fills. Having the subwoofer arrays high up, so they’re hidden in the proscenium, presented challenges such as LF bleed to the front part of the stage and coverage below the balcony. We also deployed mathematical modelling solutions in the form of energy-trapping enclosures and a massive hyperbola diffusor ceiling with absorptive backing in the inverted lotus ceiling.”

A frontfill system of eight IS7P point source boxes placed strategically in small alcoves across the front of the stage has also been designed to keep unwanted sound away from the mics onstage. Two rows of delays cover the back of the room, with eight IS7Px point sources on the first under-balcony line and four covering the furthest part of the room.

Sallaberry is grateful for the support he received from Adamson in this, his first major project for the company. “It was certainly a team effort working with Jochen and Jeremiah,” he says. And the team effort in this enormous endeavour didn’t stop there. “The coordination between our distributor, Sonotone, and Munro Acoustics also played a major role, while Bhavin’s team did a wonderful job of installing the system,” he continues. “The cabling is set up in such a way that if there is growth to the system, the infrastructure is already in place.” This includes provision to install extra speakers to fill some small dead spots throughout the hall if and when required.

“The beauty of the design is that it’s a Dante network for audio and fibre for video, with analogue backup,” adds Sureliya. “There are around 25 patch points throughout – nine onstage, six in the auditorium, eight around the periphery and a couple backstage – so you can just remove the console or other pieces of equipment, plug into the network and power up. It’s all the same, location doesn’t matter and the system is scalable, flexible and futureproof. You can extract video and audio from anywhere. The AVoIP network also goes from this main auditorium to other areas of the ashram.”

Two Allen & Heath Avantis 64-channel/42-bus digital mixers were sourced from Sun Infonet and supplied by ISPPL, one at the FOH position on the balcony and the other at the lip of the stage in the audio pit, while the video control room is installed with an Allen & Heath SQ-5 console. Peripheral equipment for the mixing system includes two-channel analogue Allen & Heath input and output Dante adapters and five DT168/INX portable Dante I/O expanders.

Four Shure ULXD4Q quad-channel digital wireless receivers were again sourced from Sun Infonet, with four ULXD1 bodypacks, 10 ULXD2/B58 wireless handheld mics and two ULXD8 and MX415 wireless goosenecks. Other microphones include 15 Shure SM58S vocal mics, six Shure SM57 instrument mics and a DPA 4488 headset mic.

The stage is backed with a large 13m x 6m Xtreme Media LED screen, with smaller Xtreme Media and VU LED screens around the auditorium, taking feeds from a Novastar H Series LED controller and Sony Z280 and Fx6 cameras. A Blackmagic Design switching and distribution system covers the auditorium, including two HyperDeck Studio 4K Pro broadcast decks and a 12G 40x40 Smart Videohub router. Video distribution is provided by Lightware components.

Delays to construction during 2023 meant that the final system installation was carried out in September and October in time for the inauguration in late December, at which four Indian bands performed. “The opening events ran for a week, and all the musicians said that this was among the finest sound they’d ever heard in an Indian venue,” Tikka testifies.

Now that the Raj Sabhagruh auditorium is fully operational, Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshji addresses a crowd of around 3,000 people every Monday from wherever he is (he currently spends half the year travelling to the mission’s worldwide locations). For the rest of the week, from Tuesday to Friday, discourses are presented, while weekends are given over to retreats themed around a particular scripture and attended by up to 5,000 people. For larger events, 10,000 people can be accommodated by using the meeting rooms, meditation hall and other overflow areas connected to the AV network.

“The audio team have done a fantastic job, going out of their way to provide us with astounding sound while following the architect’s instructions to ensure all the speakers are hidden,” concludes Tikka. “That’s not just my personal opinion but also that of regular visitors who’ve said that from any position, the speech clarity is amazing and they can hear the discourse perfectly. This, of course, is exactly what you need when you’re being given spiritual instruction.”