The very first site Jason and I went to see upon arriving in Delhi was the brand new much publicized Hindu temple (built from 2005 to the present, to the cost of millions and millions) named Akshardham…. You are not allowed to take pictures inside the temple area, so I had to resort to taking pictures of pictures, except for this one distance shot, taken on a foggy morning.
Here’ what it looks like at night (taken from an advertizing sign at the huge Delhi airport…
Once again we have a building made out of sandstone, and this one is pretty spectacular. I’m going to spare you the images from inside the temple of various golden idols, complete with a story about how a 17th century Indian boy wunderkind became the incarnation of a deity and went around healing people– sound familiar?
Hindu religion is all about enlightenment to find peace, and negate the illusory material world, which only drags you down into sin. In other words, its another religious self-help program.
It involves passing through gates like these, which represent levels of enlightenment. There is a garden where there are numerous sayings of wise men through ages, including, Ben Franklin and Martin Luther King Jr. Notably, the one saying from the Gospels (a beatitude), is attributed to ‘The Bible’ not to Jesus.
The temple is surrounded by sacred elephants which are surrounded by a moat with water from 14 or so sacred Indian rivers, remembering that rivers can be deities in the Hindu system.
Me personally, I prefer the Christian symbols to the Hindu ones, and here is the hat the college gave me for being with them…. a traditional Indian flat cap you will see everywhere in India, only this one is rocking its Christian symbols….
Farewell India, it has been an interesting journey. I can see why its an uphill battle for Christians in this country. Fortunately, Jesus is Lord of all, even of Hindu religion.
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