The similarities are intentional. A team of seven sadhus travelled to Cambodia before designing Akshardham. About 11,000 workers in Rajasthan and New Delhi carved several thousand tonnes of Italian marble and local sandstone. Statues of the sect’s founder, Swaminarayan, at different ages, weighing as much as 4,500kg, were imported from Thailand and Indonesia. A special Garden of India is strewn with bronze statues—images of India’s greatest heroes and heroines from Ram’s wife Sita to Rana Pratap, the Rajasthani maharaja.
Swamy, the spiritual head of BAPS, declined to be interviewed by Mint, citing rules prohibiting contact with women. When asked if a man could conduct the interview, the request was also declined.
At Somnath, Sharma says he believes that expanding the temple will bring in more tourists and more wealth into the town of Prabhas Patan and lift the standard of living. “People here deserve better lives and this is the way to do both,” he says, as he sat making a paan in his mud hut near the temple complex. “Spread faith and improve lives.”
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