Newsnomics AJAY ANGELINA reporter |
Narendra Modi, an Indian Prime Minister has inaugurated a grand Hindu temple in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Wednesday February 14,2024.
BAPS, a Hindu temple is an iconic masterpiece of artistic excellence and the historic hand-carved traditional stone temple symbolizing the harmonious coexistence of diverse cultures, and is receiving a massive flow of pre-registered visitors, especially from abroad.
The temple is beautifully hand-carved with thousands of pink sandstones from Rajasthan, India and Italian white marble. It has been built by using the scriptures of architecture and sculptures from the ancient Hindu ‘Shilpa shastras’ – Sanskrit. The magnificent carvings showcase different civilizations’ rich history, culture and have 250 valuable tales.
The hand-crafted iconic temple showcases the carvings of symbolic animals native to the UAE like camels, oryxes, and falcons. It also includes 14 depictions of parables from Arabian, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and other civilizations.
BAPS Temple is located at Abu Mureikha’s Al Taf Road (E16), off the Abu Dhabi-Dubai highway built on a 27-acre (11-hectare) plot gifted by the UAE government with the cost of about $95 million by the Hindu BAPS.
According to the BBC report, the temple is built with a height of 108ft (32.9m), length of 262ft (79.8m) and width of 180ft (54.8m) with a budget of 7bn rupees ($84.2m; £67.09m).
BAPS actually means Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan, is a volunteer-driven global Hindu organization that promotes spirituality, cultural values, and social service by building beautiful temples around the world. BAPS organization claims a 200-year-old history, is headquartered in PM Modi's home state Gujarat.
What makes this temple special is the beautiful collaboration of different religions that led to its construction.
The lead architect of the BAPS Hindu Temple is a “Catholic Christian, the project manager a Sikh, the foundational designer a Buddhist, the construction company a Parsi group, and the director comes from the Jain tradition”, as per BAPS spokesperson.
The inauguration ceremony of BAPS temple comes weeks after an Indian PM Narender Modi inaugurated a grand temple to Hindu god Ram in Ayodhya, the northern city of India. The construction of god Ram temple replaces the 16th-Century Mosque torn down by Hindu mobs in 1992, sparking riots in which nearly 2,000 people died.
The proposal of constructing the Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi came during PM Modi’s first visit to the UAE in 2015, after which the UAE government allocated land for the BAPS temple.
PM Modi called this a “landmark" move and thanked the leadership of UAE on behalf of 130 crore Indians.
