OM IN THE EMIRATES

HOW THE HUGELY INFLUENTIAL SWAMINARAYAN SECT AND THE GENEROSITY OF THE UAE HELPED BUILD THE BAPS HINDU MANDIR

- ANIRUDHA KARINDALAM

Travelling across the United Arab Emirates in April 1997, Pramukh Swami of the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha stopped at a desert near Sharjah and sat deep in thought, under the blazing sun. People around him stood mystified. After a while, he said: “May a temple come up in Abu Dhabi. May it bring countries, cultures and religions closer together.”

Pramukh Swami was revered as the fifth spiritual successor of Bhagwan Swaminarayan and had built hundreds of temples around the globe, including the Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar. (Akshardham in Delhi would follow.) Still, his companions in the desert could not believe their ears.

“But this saint could see what nobody could,” Brahmavihari Swami, in-charge of international relations of BAPS, told me. “He was prophetic.”

In 2015 the UAE government allotted land for building a temple in Abu Dhabi free of cost. BAPS submitted two architectural designs for the temple—one traditional and the other modern. The traditional design was the preference of Abu Dhabi’s then crown prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who became president of the UAE in 2022.

Thus began the story of BAPS Hindu Mandir, the first traditional sandstone temple in the Middle East. Mahant Swami, who had succeeded Pramukh Swami [1921-2016] as BAPS president, performed the shila poojan (consecration of stone) in 2018 and the shilanyas (foundation stone laying) in 2019.

Watching the shila poojan on video link from another part of the UAE and holding a model of the temple, Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked the crown prince for his generosity. As we went to press, the two leaders were expected at the inauguration of the temple on February 14, which would elevate India-UAE friendship to a sublime level.