Swamy Narayan, Akshardham temple in Robbinsville, New Jersey

 On 25th May, 2018, visited the Swamy Narayan, Akshardham temple in Robbinsville, New Jersey. This was the second  temple  of Swamy Narayan that I visited abroad, the first being in London. Both these temples have a similar story. The temples are constructed with Italian marble, Turkish lime  stone and Indian pink stone. The marble for these temples was quarried from European mines and shipped to Rajasthan. Here many artisans crafted the individual pieces and these were shipped back to London or New Jersey, with a numbering system and the pieces were assembled together. There is exquisite carvings in marble and some thing worth visiting. Even the lights that were being used for Arati did not have any smoke and were smokeless. However, by and large, I found the temple too gaudy and one where the attention moves away from God to the embellishments.This is an amazing structure and resembles more a museum piece. Though the temple is built in accordance to the principles of temple construction found in manuscripts, yet in terms of spirituality and the atmosphere  it did not match some of the other modern temples,  that I am aware of.