Hindu Temple To Strengthen Culture For Indians In London

LONDON - The Swaminarayan Hindu Temple, with its lacy pinnacles of carved limestone, is an unexpected sight amid the sprawl of housing, highways and shopping centers in north London.

Shimmering in the brilliant sun of a rare hot English summer, it might have been lifted straight out of the lush, green forests of India's Gujarat state.

Architect Amrish Patel said the temple, which opens today to serve Gujarati Hindus in London, will be the largest Hindu temple complex outside India.

Patel estimates about 30,000 Gujarati Hindus live in north London, although many are third- and fourth-generation Britons, and the majority are not regular worshipers.

In the final days before the opening ceremonies, Gujarati carvers are refining the lavish imagery of the 12 stone pillars, each dedicated to a deity, that form an inner circle of the "mandir," or temple.

The mandir, 70 feet high and 195 feet long, is built entirely of load-bearing stone, without steel, even in the foundation.

"It is made of natural materials that the Earth itself has created," Patel said. "Steel has a magnetic field that is not good for meditation."

The mandir, where priests worship daily, has space for 200 people. The adjacent cultural center will allow 2,500 people to worship on about a dozen religious holidays, Patel said.

The $14.4 million cost of the complex, not including volunteer labor or donated material, was raised in a door-to-door campaign and

from entrepreneurs in the Indian community.

Most of the stone carving for the mandir and the ornate wood carving for the cultural wing was done in Gujarat, Patel said.

"The skills are part and parcel of the life of the villages," said Patel. "The stonemason will start his sons and daughters in apprenticeship at about 14 or 15. His wife polishes the stone."

The mandir's seven pinnacles, or shikara, represent Himalayan peaks where the deities reside. The six domes - the ghummat - represent the sky.

Ten monks are responsible for waking the deities, giving them breakfast and putting them to bed.