The Hindu : New Delhi News : A Guinness entry for Akshardham Temple

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 27, 2007
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New Delhi

A Guinness entry for Akshardham Temple

Prashant Pandey

For being the largest Hindu temple in the world, reads the certificate

Photo: Shanker Chakravarty

Picturesque: A view of Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple in New Delhi.

NEW DELHI: The mammoth temple built in Delhi by Bochasanwasi Shri Akshardham Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, better known to Delhiites as Akshardham Mandir, has entered the Guinness Book of World Records for being the largest Hindu temple in the world.

This is the first time the Guinness Book has recognised a Hindu temple in its list of large religious structures.

The Sanstha also holds the world record for creating and consecrating the maximum number of Hindu temples in the world.

Member of the management committee of Guinness world records and official world adjudicator Michael Witty presented the certificates for the two world records to Shri Pramukh Swami on the final day of the centenary function held in Ahmedabad on December 17.

According to the Guinness certificate, the temple is 356 feet long, 316 feet wide and 141 feet high covering an area of 86,342 square feet.

“The grand, ancient style, ornately hand-carved stone temple has been built without structural steel within five years by 11,000 artisans and volunteers,” read the certificate.

While handing the certificates, Mr. Whitty said it took them three months of research, poring over the extensive architectural plans of Akshardham and also those of other temples of comparable size, visiting and inspecting the site, before being convinced that the temple deserved the title.

Mr. Whitty said Akshardham would occupy a prominent place in the next edition of the book with a double page photograph of the building and a short description of the temple.

The Guinness world records committee has also recognised the Sanstha as the organisation which built 713 temples between April 1971 and November 2007 across five continents, maximum by any one organisation or individual.

Earlier, the Guinness book had recognised the Pramukh’s record for sanctifying over 400 temples in 2001.

After its inauguration on November 6, 2005, the Akshardham temple, built on the flood plains of Yamuna and spread over a hundred acres, has been a spiritual hot-spot for not only Delhiites but also for tourists from all over the country and the rest of the world.

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