World’s largest Hindu temple Opens in New Jersey

Largest Hindu temple outside India in the modern era recently was inaugurated in New Jersey.

The BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham campus occupies roughly 180 acres in the township just east of the state Capitol in Trenton, a property large enough to swallow MetLife Stadium almost four times. The gleaming edifice of marble and stone is graced with decorative arches, intricate carvings depicting stories from Hindu scripture and about 10,000 statues. Its spire reaches 191 feet into the sky.

After 12 years of construction, the BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham is complete. The temple spans more than 180 acres and boasts 10,000 statues and the largest elliptical dome ever constructed from stone.

Almost 13,000 people from around the world spent 12 years working on the project, constructing what the congregation says is the largest Hindu temple in the world. Ahead of its official opening and dedication on Sunday − which included dedicating not just the temple but also a welcome center and religious museum − devotees said it would be a landmark moment for America's large and growing Hindu community, including almost 300,000 living in New Jersey.

It took a combined total of about 4.7 million hours of work by artisans and volunteers to hand-carve about 2 million cubic feet of stone. The four varieties of marble from Italy and limestone from Bulgaria traveled first to India and then over 8,000 miles across the world to New Jersey.

"This is the largest Hindu temple to be built in modern times," said Darshan Patel, a volunteer from Pennington, New Jersey, who serves as a temple spokesman. "The fact that something of this scale was possible here in America is a great sense of pride to American Hindus − that we can be part of the American fabric and still keep our identity intact."

That the project has also been dogged by controversy − including a lawsuit and a federal investigation into the alleged mistreatment of hundreds of workers − has not appeared to dampen the excitement of devotees. Sunday's ceremony was expected to include a visit from Mahant Swami Maharaj, the spiritual leader of the BAPS congregation, which claims more than 1,100 centers and roughly 1 million adherents around the globe.

BAPS stands for Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, a congregation named after Bhagwan Swaminarayan, an Indian religious leader of the late 1700s. The denomination emphasizes faith and humanitarian service. Its volunteers are known for contributing countless hours of selfless service, or "seva," every year, said Patel. Millions of hours of labor went into the construction of the Robbinsville campus.