Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Swaminarayan Temple Opens in Toronto
A really big temple has opened just a couple of blocks from where I live. Funny, I never noticed it before, even though I drive by the spot everyday, going to and from work. They must have sprang it up very quickly. I'm not religious, but this thing is really something to gawk at. Very large, and everything is imported and hand-carved. The Prime Minister of Canada and the Premier of Ontario both showed up for the dedication ceremony yesterday. I don't know why they built it in an industrial zone, though. Anyhow, it's very visible from Highway 427.
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3 comments:
Were such a temple to be built in Inida, our non-PM would be sure to stay away, lest it hurt the sentiments of certain "minorities".
@san,
The Swaminarayan sect seems to specialize in building temples in run down places - which then pick up and come to life based on the tourism and devotees it attracts. The first success of this strategy was in Neasden in UK (which folks tell me was a run down crap hole before the temple got there)
http://travel.ciao.co.uk/Shree_Swaminarayan_Mandir_Neasden_London__Review_5407446
http://www.mandir.org/
Being in the Big TO - can you get that Dalton M guy at all? Only last year he gave millions to a Khalistani Gurdwara for "integrating new immigrants into the country" - and now he comes over here to open the temple. Bloody loser.
Well, I took a swing by that temple today, just to get a closer look. The area is fairly congested, full of neighboring warehouses and factories. The temple organization had to put up signs at the parking lot of each and every local business, warning temple-goers not to park in those lots. It seems that the main parking lot for the temple was itself closed, most likely due to having set up tents in that space for the grand opening, etc. They were literally having to direct people to park about half-a-mile away, and providing a schoolbus to shuttle people from that remote parking spot over to the temple itself. But again I suppose it's perhaps due to the grand opening having taken up their normal onsite parking space.
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