When you enter the BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham campus in Robbinsville, you may be left speechless by the beauty that unfolds before you.
With its mesmerizing arcades of intricate arches made from hand-carved pink sandstone, tranquil terraced pools filled with water from India’s 108 sacred rivers, and elephant statues adorned with carpets, hats and ankle ornaments of pure gold, it’s all quite literally breathtaking.
But nothing may be more magnificent than Akshardham Mahamandir. This prayer hall is the complex’s spectacular centrepiece, clad in Bulgarian and Turkish limestone. Some 10,000 statues and statuettes depicting deities, ancient musical instruments and dance are embedded throughout the building and can be seen inside, as well as pristine granite imported from China and India. Oh, but don’t forget to look up, or you’ll miss the largest oval dome made of stone.
BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham was designed according to Hindu scriptures, using ancient engineering techniques similar to those used in the Egyptian pyramids, the Roman Colosseum and the Greek Acropolis. Photo courtesy of BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha
But none of these are as jaw-dropping as the Mahamandir’s base, at least not before you can admire all of its impeccable detail. Here you’ll find something more modest: a series of plaques bearing quotes from famous people.
Sure, there are sacred Hindu sayings from the Rig Veda and Pramukh Swami Maharaj, but wait a minute… is that Martin Luther King Jr. carved in a Hindu temple?
Sacred images are treated as if they were living images of God, so devotees raise them up each day, adorn them with different garments, and offer them food.
“It’s surprising for people to see the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s message inscribed on the pedestal of a Hindu place of worship,” says Chaitali Inamdar, a volunteer tour guide at BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham, “but at the same time, when you see their faces as they read the plaque, it’s a realization of what is most unifying. It’s like an ‘aha moment.'”
While the Mahamandir and surrounding area are undoubtedly connected to faith, Inamdar explained that the plaque represents the universal values of the temple’s apex body, the Bochasanvashi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS). Acts of compassion, empathy and service are fundamental, but especially in a place like this, it’s important to “see each other as spiritual beings like us,” she said. So whether that universal wisdom comes from Hindu iconography or other visionaries such as Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Confucius or Socrates, it all points to a larger lesson at work here.
Perhaps Aristotle sums it up best when he says, “The whole is something other than the parts.” For Inamdar, the pedestal of wisdom is where that “something” begins.
“Imagine coming across a great book or movie. You share it with a friend, they watch or read it, you connect with them through it, you talk about it together, you share how it made you feel and how it made them feel,” Inamdar said. “I think one of the best feelings is connecting with others through common values and messages that you can relate to. It’s a similar feeling I get when I’m giving tours to people from all walks of life.”
The beautiful pink sandstone of the Parikrama Arcade was sourced from Rajasthan, a state in western India.
But this sense of connection to the outer world means nothing without a connection to the inner world, to eternity. Literally, no temple can be built without it. Why?
In Hinduism, these two connections flow through “seva,” or “selfless service,” or volunteerism. Followers of the religion see volunteering as a purposeful act based on the broader concept of “bhakti,” or devotion to God. So in building what is now the largest Hindu temple in America in Robbinsville, BAPS members undertook a herculean effort in which more than 12,000 individuals dedicated millions of hours of their time to serving God, in the hope that their contributions would help them connect with themselves, God, and each other.
Yogesh Patel knows this better than anyone. In 2022, he was working a demanding corporate job as a senior executive at Citibank, exhausted from working nonstop, volunteering at BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham only when he had time. After months of encouraging him to volunteer more, one day his son, who was five years old at the time, uttered something he’ll never forget:
“He said, ‘Dad, if you don’t quit your job, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.’
Patel decided to follow his son’s advice and went from finance guru to mason overnight. He joined one of the volunteer groups specializing in the basics of electrical work, drilling holes in the stone so all of the temple’s wiring could safely run through it. He also “hungryly” learned what it took to source stone, including extensive lab testing to ensure the carefully selected stone would withstand the drastic changes in New Jersey’s seasons.
The BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham temple complex has the largest stone oval dome ever built.
While work certainly excited him, Patel credits something larger with helping him rediscover his “source of happiness”: seva.
“Our work began each day by all coming together at the temple for our morning ritual, a collective ritual. We had breakfast together and we all said a little prayer,” he said. “It fostered friendships between people, whether they’d been there for two years, three years or even two hours. Everyone felt like it was an open environment where they wanted to talk, share and get to know each other. That’s been really wonderful for the people here.”
Patel said that anyone, Hindu or not, can feel the same sense of liberation when walking through BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham. He believes it is a return to the universal values of peace, compassion and service that are so deeply etched in stone that they speak to him, “as if the campus itself were whispering words of inspiration.”
So if you experience something that takes your breath away during your visit, why not take the opportunity to listen closely? What do you hear?
As you absorb that greatness from every source, remember that you can only find it in… In Jersey.
Editor’s Note: BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham is located at 112 N. Main St. in Robbinsville, New Jersey. It is open every day except Tuesdays from 9 am to 7:30 pm. Entry is free, although an admission pass is required on weekends and holidays. There is a strict dress code on the premises. Tops must cover shoulders, back, chest, navel and upper arms. Legwear must be at least below the knee. Visitors who do not follow the proper dress code will be asked to wear a wrap provided by the mandir.
This article originally appeared in Jersey’s Best’s Summer 2024 issue. To learn more about the greatness of the Garden State, subscribe here.
