The largest Hindu temple outside India in the modern era opened this week near Bucks County, in Robbinsville, New Jersey, according to a staff report from WHYY.

The BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham was built using four varieties of marble from Italy and limestone from Bulgaria. It was hand-carved by artisans in India and then shipped more than 8,000 miles across the world to New Jersey. It took around 4.7 million hours of work by both artisans and volunteers to hand carve the around 2 million cubic feet of stone that were required.

When they arrived at their final destination, the stones were then fitted together like a giant jigsaw. The final result is a huge and beautiful temple that stands on an extensive 126 acres.

“Service and devotion are the two basic elements that form the subtle foundation of how a temple so majestic gets built here in central New Jersey,” said Yogi Trivedi, a scholar of Hinduism at Columbia University.

The temple is one of many erected by Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, a global religious and civic organization within the Swaminarayan sect.

Read more about BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham in WHYY.

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