BALBIR SINGH/NEW JERSEY
The BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham, the largest Hindu temple in the U.S., was built between 2011 to 2023. It was inaugurated on October 8, last year, As many as 12,500 volunteers from across the U.S. dedicated millions of hours to build the Hindu temple.
It is the second largest Hindu Temple in the World. The largest Angkor Wat is a Hindu-Buddhist temple complex in Cambodia.
(MOREPIC1)(MOREPIC2)(SUBHEAD)The BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham is an amazing temple that reflects the traditional architecture and spirit and culture of Hindu religion. Thousands of devotees daily visit the sprawling BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham.
Akshardham measures 255 ft x 345 ft x 191 ft and spans over 183 acres. Akshardham was designed according to ancient Hindu scriptures. Akshardham includes design elements from ancient Indian culture including 10,000 statues and statuettes, carvings of ancient Indian musical instruments and dance forms.
The unique Hindu temple design includes: * 1 main shrine * 12 sub-shrines * 9 shikhars (spire-like structure) * 9 pyramidal shikhars. Akshardham houses the largest elliptical dome of traditional stone architecture ever constructed.
Nearly two million cubic feet of stone was used in the construction and was sourced from different sites around the world, including: * Limestone: Bulgaria, Turkey * Marble: Greece, Turkey, Italy o Granite: India, China o Sandstone: India o Other decorative stones: Europe, Asia, Latin America.
The Brahma Kund, a traditional Indian stepwell, contains water from over 300 bodies of water from around the world, including the holy rivers of India and all 50 states of the U.S.
Sustainable practices of BAPS include a solar panel farm, a fly ash concrete mix, and the planting of over 2 million trees worldwide in the past few decades.