While we've packed a lot into our US road trip, we also need to include downtime, or else it can get very tiring! Today was one of these days, where we spent the morning hanging out at the Walmart parking lot before focusing on just one stop today, the largest Hindu temple in the Western Hemisphere! BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham is a large Hindu temple campus built by the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) organization.
Because we were there during a peak time to visit (the day before Diwali), we needed to reserve a specific time to visit the shrine, which we did for the early afternoon. Dogs aren't allowed in the main shrine (including service dogs), so we left Sheila and went into the first building, which featured various sculptures inlaid in the woodwork, and a few children on a stage playing music. This led to to a huge outdoor plaza featuring a 49-foot (almost 15 meter) tall bronze statue of Bhagwan Swaminarayan as a young man, a yogi who's believed to be a manifestation of Krishna. There were marble benches around the perimeter of the plaza, with lights decorated around for the Diwali festivities. Not far from the main shrine were also ornate, golden sculptures of elephants.
We then went into the main shrine, which is super impressive, as it's built from millions of cubic feet of marble and stone with thousands of carved statues and panels. They were very strict on dress code and we were not allowed to take photos in any of the religious areas of the temple.
HH Pramukh Swami Maharaj, the 5th spiritual successor of Bhagwan Swaminarayan, had a vision to create a spiritual campus in the US that would bring together thousands of years of Hindu art, architecture and culture. We were in awe of the thousands of fine details sculpted inside, including of yogis, swamis (Hindu monks), peacocks, swans, and other details. The marble included Turkish, Greek and Italian marble, and all of this was sculpted in India, then shipped to the US, where it was painstakingly put together. The whole construction took over a decade, with construction completed in 2023.
We talked to a couple of volunteers inside, who mentioned that there are even ancient books about "how to build a temple," which was the inspiration for this design. We couldn't help but giggle at the idea of a "temple building for dummies" book existing! Hundreds of volunteers gave up hours of their time over the decade it took to construct the complex, and there were still scores of volunteers onsite, happy to answer any questions folks may have, or provide additional information or tours to visitors.
Besides the main shrine, we also visited the mandir, a separate building that serves as a place of worship to visitors. It's a smaller building, but is just as ornate, with its all-white marble carvings and beautiful design. We couldn't take photos inside, but just like the temple we had to take our shoes off and wandered around the area, joining other visitors who were there to pray or, like us, simply marvel at the construction of these buildings.
As we were leaving, we passed a tent and it turns out that we all received food and drink for free as part of our visit and to celebrate Diwali! We were each given a small container with a warm, spiced lentils and rice dish, a cold drink of masala chaas (a spiced buttermilk drink made from yogurt, water and a blend of herbs & spices like cumin, salt and chaat masala--it's meant to help with digestion and is more of a savory drink), as well as a couple of sweets. The drink was a bit of an acquired taste as we don't really drink salty and spicy beverages, but we enjoyed the other meals!
Turkey Swamp Park
In the evening, we headed to a campground in Turkey Swamp Park, a county park and nature preserve in New Jersey, as we needed to plug in (our solar power was getting really low, as the sun doesn't shine as brightly or as long during this time of the year). It seemed like a really lovely park, with lots of places to go hiking and canoeing in the area. The campground was similar to the site we had all the way back when we stayed in the Grand Canyon--pullouts off the path, with electricity and water (dump site is at a separate place for everyone to drive to). Our hose couldn't reach all the way to the water spigot, but we still had water in our tanks so will fill up on this tomorrow before we leave.
