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The Temple of Vedic Planetarium, Mayapur, India [Part 1/2]
13 July, 2007 by feloniousvindaloo
The temple of Vedic Planetarium, Mayapur, India…to be the World’s tallest Hindu temple (35 storeys)
Part 1: Project Overview
The focal point of Indian architecture, like its culture, has always been religious in nature. Just as theIndian economic boom is bringing incredible economic and architectural growth in the secular area, so hasIndian religious architecture started once again creating some of the worlds largest, massive, and mostintricate religious architecture in world.
Now, plans are underway in Mayapur, West Bengal, located on the banks of the River Ganga nearNavadvip, about 130 km north of Kolkata, to build another massive religious work: the tallest Hindutemple in the world, one of the largest religious buildings ever constructed (the largest being theAnkgor Wat Hindu temple in Cambodia), and one of the largest religious complexes to be built inlast 200 years. A temple that, at 35 storeys, and will be just shy of the Pyramids in Giza inheight, and without major repair is built to last over a thousand years –the Sri Mayapur VedicPlanetarium and Temple.
Read on for a comprehensive description of the planned temple, originally posted by me onSkyscrapercity.com…
Location: The Pilgrimage Town of Mayapur, West Bengal
Mayapur is a pilgrimage place for various traditions of Hinduism, but is of particular import to followers ofGaudiya Vaishnavism as Mayapur is the birthplace of 16th century saint Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
The town is heavily centred around the Gaudiya Vaishnava religious tradition, with temples devoted toRadha and Krishna throughout. Since the 1970′s Mayapur has also the site of the world headquarters of theInternational Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) amongst a number of other Vaishnavaorganisations such as the Gaudiya Math.
^ Photos of Sri Mayapur Dham, Mayapur, West Bengal
Indeed, it is ISKCON who is planning to build a huge “Religious Tourism” project, which includes as itsfeature the 35-storey tall Sri Mayapur Vedic Planetarium and Temple.
As Hindu temples are built to symbolically represent the cosmos (here’s a nice paper on Indian Architectureand Cosmology), the temple includes a Planetarium and learning center, and is to be surroundedby a large Vedic Village, a Village Industrial Park, hotels and accomodations, and will house alarge Vedic university, the Mayapur Centre of Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
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The Temple ComplexSpearheaded by the ABF foundation, run by Alfred Brush Ford, descendent of US automobile pioneer andthe Ford founder, Henry Ford, the entire Temple Project is estimated at Rs 600 crore.
^ Plan of Temple and first phase of the Vedic Village. (click to enlarge)
Completion of the project would lead to several things, including spin-off benefits for the local economy,improvement in healthcare and education facilities, availability of micro credit to the people. The idea is toensure that tourist arrivals in Mayapur goes up by “1,000 per cent by 2020″. With properinfrastructure in place, Mayapur could figure among the top-20 tourist destinations in India.
^ Scale model of the immediate temple vicinity. Photos taken in Mayapur last year.
A “vedic planetarium” would be built at Mayapur as part of the tourism project. It would alsohave a Mayapur Centre of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. The Ganges would be used as a thoroughfarefor ferrying tourists from Sundarbans to Mayapur via Dakshineswar (a place en route whichhouses the famous Kali temple built by Rani Rashmoni in 18th century Bengal.)
The planetarium’s research centre will have scientists from NASA and the ISRO explaining thecontributions of Vedic cosmology to the study of today’s space science, as well as regularsymposia on the subject by astro-physicists. The project aims to make a the project a center ofastrophysical and cosmological research.
^ Another view of the model. Note the model of the Mayapur Centre of Gaudiya Vaishnavismuniversity in the second model, behind the temple.
While the 22-acre Vedic planetarium project will be undertaken by Mayapur project society, a charitablebody, work for the village industries park will be taken up by Mayapur Village Industries Park Pvt Ltd. TheMayapur Tourism Development Pvt Ltd will be responsible for the tourism hospitality complex.
According to ABF International director John Robert Sims, the 19.9-acre village industries park has beenconceived as an integrated area to provide physical infrastructure, world-class engineering and technologicalinputs, common facilities. Human resource development and platform to all productions units.
It will have units like local handicrafts, sculpture, terracotta manufacturing and handlooms for cotton, juteand silk products, earthen products, organic food processing zones, fruits and vegetables, milk and dairyproducts, chilling plants, cold storages, packaged drinking water including bottling plant, multi-commodityraw material, finished goods and warehouses.The hospitality tourism complex, spread over 19.2 acre, will have 700 high-end hotel rooms, 2,700 middle-standard rooms and 6,700 lower-end rooms, besides other hospitality facilities.
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Design and architecture of the Mandir
The temple is a modern interpretation of ancient Nagara (Northern) and Kalinga (Orissan) Hindu templedesign. It has a consists of three connected domed structures.
The first, the Exhibition Hall, will include many exhibits, a large planetarium, and a Garuda stambha (acolumn supporting the carved image of Garuda.) The smallest of the three structures, the Exhibition Hall willbe about nine stories high. Construction for the Exhibition hall has already begun.
The second building, the Kirtana Hall, will be approximately eighteen stories tall and features an enormousvyasana for Sri Prabhupada at its center.
^ Prerenderings of the inside chamber, showing general layout. The entire struture will behand-carved in the Hindu temple style.
The third structure, the Shikar, or main temple, will stand about thirty-five stories tall. This building willhouse a magnificent Deity chamber and a beautiful glass and marble gopuram.
^ Cross section of Kirtana Hall, and a Front Profile view of some of the glasswork
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Size of the Mandir
The size that the temple will be is simply immense. A lot of the renderings don’t do justice to thescale of the project. Some comparisons with other major religious landmarks of the world:
^ Compared to the Mahadeva Temple, Khajuraho (11th Century),
^ Compared to the Taj Mahal, Agra (17th Century)
^ Compared to Haga Sophia, Istanbul (6th Century)
^ Compared to St. Pauls Cathedral, London (17th Century)
^ Compared to St. Peters, Rome (16th Century)
^ Compared to The Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt (2400 BC)
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Material Construction of the Temple:
No steel /will be used in the building of the Temple. The entire structure will be built withbricks fired from Ganga silt. An ancient Bengali palace near Mayapur, built essentially this same way,still stands after nine hundred years without modern technology or restoration. Hence, the brickwork is aviable lasting solution.
The Temple will be built five meters above the highest recorded flood level of the Ganges. The entirestructure rests atop a poured concrete slab 2.5 meters thick covering roughly four acres. This slab will actas a raft to literally float the building on the muddy Gangetic delta which makes up Mayapur.
The Project is to be completed by 2010-15 timeframe. Preliminary groundwork has begun.
