What strikes visitors first upon seeing the massive Hindu temple in Mercer County is the size and ornateness of this vast complex. The BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham awes first-time guests, even if they’ve seen photos and read that it is the second largest Hindu temple in the world—yes, the world—right there in Robbinsville.
The temple, which took more than a dozen years and cost close to $100 million to build, officially opened last October. It was seen as a reflection of the growing size and influence of the Hindu population in New Jersey—the largest concentration of Hindus in any state, at 3 percent of the population. (California is second at 2 percent; the United States overall has the seventh largest Hindu population outside of India.) Almost all Hindus are Indian, and their visibility in public life has grown dramatically since the U.S. immigration reform of 1965 opened the door to a wave of newcomers from Asia.
The temple is set on 185 acres. Photo: Courtesy of BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham
At first, many did the low-wage jobs often left to immigrants—taxi drivers, motel owners and convenience store proprietors. But now, Indian Americans are following the trajectory of so many earlier waves of immigrants, becoming better educated and much wealthier, while retaining passion for the practice of the religious traditions of their homeland.
And that is the main reason this new temple exists.
But what is almost as surprising as the grandeur of the place is the ordinariness of the crowd. During a visit on a sunny spring Sunday, at least half the visitors appeared to be neither Hindu nor Indian—just a thoroughly Jersey mix of young and old, and out-of-state tourists. Some piled out of tour buses, but most arrived by car, guided by volunteers into one of the enormous parking lots—many still unpaved and dusty—off Route 130.
Mahant Swami Maharaj, guru and president of a major branch of a Hindu denomination, doing inauguration rituals at BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham. The temple officially opened last October. Photo: Courtesy of BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham
Nicole Mazurick of Lawrenceville has been there four times already; this time, she brought her two sisters-in-law from Pennsylvania. Debbie Stetzer heard about the temple from an Indian friend and came down from Fair Lawn with her daughter, who had seen a video of the temple on TikTok. “It’s awesome, it’s totally amazing,” Stetzer says. She sent a selfie to her cousin, who shot back, “Are you on vacation?”
Granted, the lovely spring weather almost demanded a day trip. But the Robbinsville temple, set on 185 acres, seems well on its way to becoming a Garden State destination. A retired couple from Toms River was leaving early because the lines were so long, but said they’d come back. A group of young women came from Philly thanks to an Instagram influencer. A family from West Long Branch heard about it because a teacher they knew went on a class trip and couldn’t get over the place.
Keyur Patel, who runs the food court and other temple services, says there were 35,000 visitors on New Year’s Day, mostly Hindus. “We’ve had 20,000 today,” he says, and that looked about right. In fact, just a few weeks later, the temple set up an online timed-entry system to better regulate the crowds. And, yes, they even have an app, available for both Apple and Android devices.
“We did expect this,” says Darshan Patel, a tax attorney from Princeton who was my guide for the day. “The campus is meant to bring all people together from all backgrounds. That’s how the temple was built, how it operates.”
The temple’s craftsmanship and details are incredible. Photo: Courtesy of BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham
The authenticity is truly remarkable—and purposeful. “This is not an adaptation,” Darshan Patel insists. “It is genuine, built just like temples in India.”
Hundreds of stonecutters and craftsmen were brought over to work on the temple, along with volunteers from the state’s Hindu community. Nearly 2 million cubic feet of marble, sandstone, limestone and granite went into the complex, much of it from India, but some quarried in Italy and other parts of the globe to ensure it could withstand the climate of the northeastern United States.
“The ancient idea is that, when you build a temple, it will last for at least a thousand years,” Darshan Patel tells me. Teakwood from Burma covers every area that is not stone. There are 10,000 carved statues (and more coming) around the vast courtyard, and at the center, the main shrine features what is reportedly the largest elliptical dome ever constructed from stone.
To tour the mandir, or the temple sanctuary, visitors must remove their shoes. No photos are allowed, and cell phones must be silenced.
Nearly 2 million cubic feet of marble, sandstone, limestone and granite went into the complex. Photo: Courtesy of BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham
It’s a stunning and unique experience, like being inside a Lego set of Carrara marble pieces, all assembled according to the exacting instructions set down in ancient Hindu scriptures—with some concessions to local building codes, of course. The ceiling blocks are connected by dowels and held together by their own weight and very little mortar.
The pool and fountains in front of the Akshardham include water brought from sacred rivers in India, as well as from 300 bodies of water around the United States. Statues of garlanded elephants welcome guests to the visitor center and into an enormous carved entrance hall. Darshan Patel smiles as we walk in, and says, “Sometimes it is sensory overload.” The real aim is to make it feel like a village in Gujarat, the western Indian state where the Swaminarayan movement began and where most local devotees hail from. “This is a reflection of ancient India,” my guide tells me. “It’s traditional Indian architecture brought here to the United States. That’s a driver for people.”
Yet this authenticity may have come at a price. A lawsuit filed last year alleges that the temple was built on the backs of foreign laborers who were made to work long days in dangerous conditions for little money. Temple members express shock and regret at the claims when they are raised and hope they are unfounded because they do not represent the Hindu spirit of the Robbinsville temple. So far, the lawsuit has not moved ahead or resulted in charges.
For a while, the abuse allegations popped up first in web searches about the temple. But the temple is quickly becoming the friendly face of Hinduism in America, as it was designed. Just as Catholic immigrants in the 19th century sought to establish their presence with grand cathedrals modeled after those they left behind in Europe, so too Hindus in the 21st century are showing that they belong by building monumental tributes to their faith. “It’s exactly the same thing. They are now part of the American landscape,” says Edwin Bryant, a Rutgers University professor of religion who specializes in Hinduism. “Now they want social recognition and cultural representation.”
The temple is seen as a reflection of the growing size and influence of the Hindu population in New Jersey—the largest concentration of Hindus in any state. Photo: Courtesy of BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham
For all the Asian authenticity, they also want to bridge the Old World and the new, which is why the complex features such amenities as a full-service cafeteria (“The family that eats together, stays together,” reads the motto of the Shayona Café) and a gift shop with all sorts of merchandise, from Hindu tchotchkes, children’s books and candies (“sanctified sweets”) to a portable puja (prayer) kit, everything branded with the temple’s Americanized logo. A museum is set to open next year. “You would not see those in a traditional temple in India,” says Vineet Chander, Hindu chaplain at Princeton University and an expert on the Hindu-American diaspora community. “It’s a bit Disneyland, it’s a bit megachurch, it’s a bit of the architectural wonder,” Chander says. “I see students wearing a Swaminarayan hoodie and I think, Wow, I’d never have done such a thing as a young person, even if I could find a Hindu hoodie.”
The bigger challenge for the Robbinsville temple is educating other Americans about Hinduism. That’s a tall order in the best of circumstances. Many Americans toss around terms like yoga and karma, but what they mean is often far removed from the Hindu concepts. And they are getting to know about holidays like Holi and Diwali as those celebrations have started appearing on school calendars. But genuinely understanding Hinduism is not easy because it is so different from the Western idea of religion.
Hundreds of stonecutters and craftsmen were brought over to work on the temple, along with volunteers from New Jersey’s Hindu community. Photo: Courtesy of BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham
Hinduism is generally regarded as the oldest religion in the world, originating some 4,000 years ago among the peoples across the Indus River, from which the term Hindu comes. It’s as much a geographical, philosophical and cultural designation as it is a religion as described by Westerners, who often try to compare it, to the detriment of Hinduism, to traditional European religious concepts such as monotheism, dogmas and denominations. Hence, Hinduism is often described as a polytheistic religious worship of idols by different sects. But that’s not right. “It’s not polytheistic, but one manifestation of an infinity of forms,” says Bryant. “There is no pope or hierarchy.”
Explains Chander, “Viewed from a certain lens, especially in the West, it can seem messy and all over the place. But there are deep complex theologies that essentially say God is a reality beyond the material limits….God is one and many, a personal, loving being we can connect with.” That sounds like something many non-Hindu Americans might relate to.
That multiplicity is another reason the temple is in Robbinsville. Swaminarayan, after whom the akshardham, or temple, is named, was a yogi and ascetic who traveled around India in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, developing a reputation as a holy man and Hindu reformer. A movement grew around him after his death in 1830 and split into various branches. At the same time, Swaminarayan was elevated to godhead status, a manifestation of Vishnu, “akin to the avatars Krishna or Rama, the fullest depiction of divinity,” as Chander puts it.
Most Hindus don’t ascribe to that, he notes. But another novel thing about Hinduism is that such a grand claim for one line of the tradition is not cause to wage a holy war to shun the Swaminarayan Akshardham. “It is not grounds for theological debate; no one would find it offensive. The temple is something everybody would be proud of, not as a tourist attraction, but as a holy space,” he says.
The pool and fountains at the temple include water brought over from sacred rivers in India, as well as from 300 bodies of water around the United States. Photo: Courtesy of BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham
If the larger story about the Robbinsville temple is the mainstreaming of Hinduism in American life, the inside story is about the mainstreaming of Swaminarayan lineage into Hinduism. “It’s brand-new by Indian standards, the new kid on the block,” says Bryant, of Rutgers. In Hinduism, newcomers do two things to establish their bona fides, Bryant says: “You write a commentary on the Vedanta Sutras”—Hindu sacred texts—“which they did. Then you want a big, huge temple, and you have arrived theologically.”
Mission accomplished.
Hindus in America and beyond are flocking to the Robbinsville temple, and everyone else is getting at least a sense of what this ancient religion, this culture, and above all, this aesthetic, are all about. There are bells and incense, food and chants, the sculpted sanctuary and statuary of Hindu deities, and even busts of Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King Jr. “It’s the Indian community being part of the fabric of American society,” says Darshan Patel. “It’s all about the atmosphere here.”
To schedule a visit to the temple, go to usa.akshardham.org/visit/reservations.
David Gibson, director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, is a longtime religion writer who worked at The Star-Ledger and The Record.
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