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| Architect Piyush Sompura and Mahavir Mandir Trust secretary Acharya Kishore Kunal in Patna on Tuesday. Picture by Deepak Kumar |
Mahavir Mandir Trust has revised the measurements of the proposed Viraat Angkor Wat Ram temple near Hajipur with an aim to make it the largest Hindu shrine, with the tallest spire (shikhar), in the world.
Modelled on the Angkor Wat temple of Cambodia, the proposed temple would be 360-foot long, 360-foot wide and 270-foot tall.
Acharya Kishore Kunal, the secretary of the Mahavir Mandir Trust, said: “We did a lot of research and visited the Archaeological Survey of India office in New Delhi for advice from experts. Temples such as the Kashi Vishwanath shrine in Varanasi, Akshardham in New Delhi and Brihadeeswarar in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, were almost of the same dimension. We did not want the new temple to look similar. We wanted to construct a Ram temple that would be famous globally. So we decided to revise the temple’s dimensions.”
The initial plan was to construct the temple at Rs 100 crore. “But now it may cross Rs 150 crore,” Kunal added.
Earlier, the temple was supposed to be 222-foot-long, 222-foot-wide and 222-foot-tall. The Viraat Angkor Wat Ram temple will come up near Ismailpur village, about 30km north-east of Patna. The area where the temple would be constructed has been named Angkor Nagar.
Piyush Sompura, an architect of the Sompura clan of Gujarat that specialises in temple designing for generations, has offered to construct the temple for free.
Piyush said: “The temple would follow the architectural design of the Angkor Wat but it would not be an exact replica, as the measurements would vary. Like Angkor Wat, the Ram temple would also have five layers and Bhagwan Ram would be housed on the fifth layer, 72-foot-high from the ground layer.”
He added: “There will be 21 sanctum sanctorum and 21 shikhars at the temple. Escalators would be available for old and unwell devotees to reach the main Ram temple. The temple would be pink in colour and stones to construct it would be brought from Bharatpur in Rajasthan.”
