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Varnas -The four classes of society/The Original Caste System Hindu society has traditionally been divided into four classes, based on profession: the Brāhmanas (also anglicised as Brahmins): teachers and priests; the Kshatriyas: warriors, kings and administrators; the Vaishyas: farmers, merchants, herdsmen and businessmen; and the Shūdras: servants and labourers. Each of these classes was called a varna, and the system was called Varna Vyavasthā. Some say it is debatable whether the Varna Vyavasthā system is an integral part of Hinduism or not and whether or not it is strictly sanctioned by the scriptures. The Shruti texts make very rare mentions of this system, without providing explicit definitions. But the Bhagavad Gītā (4.13) explicitly mentions that the four varna divisions are created by Bhagavān, the Supreme Lord. And the Smriti texts (including the Manusmriti) are more explicit in their categorisation of the classes and framing rather strict rules about this system. During its early development, the social structure was based upon the profession. The Gītā (4.13) explicitly says that one's varna is to be understood from one's qualities and one's work, not one's birth. It is noteworthy that many great sages became Brahmins. Vishvāmitra was a Kshatriya king before he became recognized as a great Brahmin sage. Vālmiki, once a robber, became a great sage while Veda Vyāsa was the son of a fisherwoman. A hymn from the Rig Veda says : "I am a bard, my father is a physician, my mother's job is to grind the corn......" (Rig Veda 9.112.3). Though historians do not agree on the specific period, the social system later became hierarchical and based upon birth, leading to the evolution of several sub-castes (along with a class of outcastes — now known as Dalits — outside the Varna Vyavasthā) and the practice of social discrimination of the Shūdra and Dalit classes, eventually forming the caste system as we know of today. http://www.hinduwiki.com/index.php?title=Varnas The religious institution of Varna-ashrama Dharma is followed in most Vaishnava Sects of Hinduism. Varna is simply an occupational structure for society. In varna there are four tiers Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras. All are important for a functioning society. You determine your varna by your skills and ability. Not by birth or race. Brahmins are all religious clergy, gurus, saints, sadhus and the intellectual class(anyone with a Ph.D or graduates degree) etc......Kshatriya are the politicians, officers, soldiers etc....Vaishya are the business men, farmers, artists/painters/photographers etc... Shudras are the working class people to poor people. Those are the only four stations in varna ashrama dharma, there is nothing higher or lower. Whether a society labels these position the same or not , they still exist. Every functioning society must have these positions. In hinduism being in one of these stations doesn't carry any negative connotations. It's just something that exist. It's not race based or birth based, it's based on your skill/ability. That's not only fair it's practical, IMO. In Hinduism there is no Caste, but there is Varna, which is very different system. There is more mobility and evolution with varna ashrama dharma then there is with the static cultural implementation of caste system, which evolved from varna. But it's not the same system. British Empire: Articles: Britain and the Indian Caste System <!-- BEGIN TEMPLATE: bbcode_quote --> Quote: <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #666666 1px solid; PADDING-RIGHT: 3ex; BORDER-TOP: #666666 1px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 3ex; BORDER-LEFT: #666666 1px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #666666 1px solid" bgColor=#e0e0e0>The word caste is not a word that is indigenous to India. It originates in the Portuguese word casta which means race,breed, race or lineage. However, during the 19th century, the term caste increasingly took on the connotations of the word race. Thus, from the very beginning of western contact with the subcontinent European constructions have been imposed on Indian systems and institutions. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> <!-- END TEMPLATE: bbcode_quote -->

http://www.dailyherald.com/special/passagefromindia/temple.asp Building a house of heaven for Bartlett Carved in India, Hindu temple will be largest in North America Story by Rukmini Callimachi Photos by M. Scott Mahaskey <TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=0 width=200 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD class=photocaption>The Akshardham monument in Gandhinagar, Gujarat is the crowning jewel of the Swaminarayans, a small sect of Hinduism that is gaining popularity in North America. Akshardham translates to "house of heaven" in English.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>PINDWARA, Rajasthan - Just off of India's National Highway, in the middle of a desert so bald and sun-bleached that even shadows seem to dry up, the largest Hindu temple in North America is taking shape. A continent away from the temple's eventual home along Route 59 in Bartlett, slabs of white, uncured marble line both sides of the road - and all through the day, the sound of men chipping at stone spills onto the highway. In one sprawling factory, strips of cloth stretch across poles blocking out the worst of the glare. Underneath, more than 450 craftsmen work in 12-hour shifts, carving the 108 marble pillars that soon will be shipped by sea to Bartlett. Paid $1.50 a day, the men carve intricate patterns of sun and stars into the stone. Their hands are cracked. White marble dust clings to their clothes and stains the backs of their necks. Women, covered from head to foot, bend over their work, polishing the finished product. They make $1 a day - a standard wage for Rajasthan's marble craftsmen. In this village, the Bochasanwasi Shree Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) sect of Hindus employs 3,000 Indian craftsmen to work on all their projects - including their soon-to-be temple in Bartlett, which they hope will win a Guinness Book of World Records listing. The temple will cost about $30 million to build, a pittance considering its scope. <TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=0 width=200 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD class=photocaption>An artist's rendering of what the temple, or mandir portion of the Bartlett Swaminarayan complex will look like when it it finished. Courtesy of the Baps Sect, Bartlett</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>The entire complex, which will span 170,000 square feet, will consist of three structures - two immense halls flanking a central white temple. The temple, crowned with 15 domes, will be made of Turkish limestone and white incandescent marble. Its architecture, traditionally Indian, will include several grand balconies held up by soaring pillars and a monumental shrine room. The Burmese teak interior of the two halls will be carved with a garden of stylized flowers. Here in Pindwara, the temple work will cost a fraction of what it would in the States. But money is not the only point. Inside the factory, on a ledge above a fuse box, 10 paintings of Hindu deities are ornamentally displayed behind glass. Roses and fruit have been placed before them. It is for them, that half a world away, the temple is being built. Breakfast of the gods At the break of day, as traffic on Route 59 is just beginning to hum, the gods have breakfast in Bartlett. Pravin Thakar, 56, a recent immigrant from the Indian state of Gujarat, sleeps not far from the 10 idols who grace the shrine room of Bartlett's Swaminarayan Temple. Thakar, the temple's priest, rings a brass bell at 5:30 a.m., gently waking the gods whose job it is to wake the world. Carefully, he takes off their blankets and undresses them. Then coaxes them, one by one, to bathe with a perfumed washcloth. He dresses them in ornamental clothes. He offers them a glass of water and a toothbrush with a hint of Crest. Then he places their morning meal before them. A spicy Indian oatmeal, followed by a plate of mangoes or cut apples. A glass of sweetened milk, followed by another glass of water - this one for gargling. "To us they are not just stone but breathing beings," said Harish Patel of Naperville, the temple's spokesperson, referring to the life-sized marble sculptures fed at breakfast, lunch and dinner. The gods represented here are among the most famous of the hundreds in the Hindu pantheon - Shiva, Ram, Krishna and the elephant god Ganesh - as well as Lord Swaminarayan, the 19th century saint who founded the sect. <TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=0 width=200 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD class=photocaption>A statue of Lord Swaminarayan seemingly floats in space inside the Akshardham visitor's center in Gandhinagar, India.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Idol worship, which is at the core of the strand of Hinduism practiced here, is meant to bridge the gap between man and the divine. "If we think of God as just being in the sky, then he is too infinite. It's too hard for us to understand him. Too hard to grasp. So we try to make him more like us," explained Patel. In every way, the temple offers its gods the best. The turbans the statues wear are made of the finest silk, reserved for bridegrooms and politicians in India. The food symbolically served to them is prepared daily; nothing is refrigerated. But in the next year and a half, the more than 1,000 Hindu devotees here are preparing to offer their gods something even more spectacular. "If we can spend millions building houses for ourselves - if we can build sports stadiums and multiplexes - why not build a big house for God?" said Nayan Mehta, one of the temple's volunteers. "Should our god be allowed to live in a hut?" added Patel. The current temple - which at 100,000 square feet already is one of the most impressive in the Chicago area - is not exactly a hut. But nothing short of the largest Hindu temple on the continent will be a good enough offering. "God has given us everything," said temple volunteer Kalpesh Patel of Streamwood. "It's wrong to say that we can even give anything back." Stone by stone Pindwara, seven hours from the Ahmedabad headquarters of the BAPS sect, is the center of India's marble solar system. Every temple and marbled mosque in north India has its roots in this region, so it would make sense that the Swaminarayans would tap into the area's vast marble mines. But they don't. <TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=0 width=200 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD class=photocaption>A woman carries bricks for an ongoing construction project at Akshardham, the main monument of the Swaminarayan faith.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Instead, they go 3,700 miles farther to Carrara, Italy, for marble that is the best money can buy. "It's much softer," said sculptor Ida Ram Khimaji, 60, comparing Italian marble with the native variety. As he spoke, Khimaji was bent over a slab destined for Bartlett carved with a disc-like sun, emanating marble rays. "It's more than just the softness," said Bharat Patel of Hanover Park, the chief engineer of the Bartlett temple. Indian marble, he said, does not have a uniform hue. "Carrara marble is famous, the coloring is perfect," he said. The Swaminarayan sect was introduced to Carrara marble in 1997 by a British architect working on their London temple - one of the grandest Swaminarayan temples and listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest Hindu temple outside India. All the sect's temples built since have used the Italian stone. From Rome, containers of the fine white marble are shipped by sea to Kandla, a port in Gujarat. It arrives in Pindwara on the backs of trucks. BAPS is one of three Swaminarayan groups, all tracing their lineage back to Lord Swaminarayan and headquartered in Gujarat, the saint's home. All three have temples in the Chicago suburbs - the other two are in Wheeling and Itasca. But BAPS, whose largest U.S. following is in Bartlett, is by far the most affluent. In the foreman's office in Pindwara, a sketch of the future Bartlett temple shows each piece of the immense jigsaw puzzle of marble. Each beam and sculpted pillar is carved and polished, then packed in foam and trucked back across the desert to Kandla. The pieces then travel by ship to New York, by rail to Chicago and by truck to Bartlett, where the temple is being assembled stone-by-stone in a 30-acre field just off of Route 59. The men who do the carving are paid 70 rupees a day, the women, slightly less. This is the great secret of the BAPS sect, which in less than a century has built more than 450 temples in 45 countries. They use the best marble money can buy, but they also rely on a voluntary workforce of thousands. Some, like Bharat Patel, are highly skilled and yet, for more than a decade, Patel has overseen construction of the sect's major monuments free of charge. <TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=0 width=200 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD class=photocaption>Women can polish the marble, but only the men are allowed to carve.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>"How can you put a dollar figure on that?" asked Harish Patel. But mostly, they use the exquisite craftsmanship of traditional carvers to create monuments of soaring beauty. Even at $30 million, the Bartlett temple is a bargain for its size and grandeur. It is half the cost of the new Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, for example. These temples serve to publicly announce the faith -to potential devotees as well as to the world at large. The approach has worked - the Swaminarayan faith is the fastest growing sect of Hinduism in America, said Nathan Katz, chair of religious studies at Florida International University in Miami. Its success, he said, has grown hand-in-hand with the Gujarati community here. "The Swaminarayan faith is very ethnically-rooted in Gujarat - and Gujaratis are disproportionately represented in America," he said. While in India, only 4 percent of the population is Gujarati, Katz estimates that nearly 50 percent of the United States' Indian immigrants are from that state. 'A serious gesture' Open the Schaumburg phone book and scroll to page 165, where the Patels start with Abhas C. and continue for 427 names - a full-page of razor-fine print later. There are more Patels here than Smiths, who number 395. <TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=0 width=200 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD class=photocaption>Monkeys play on a shed nearby a marble factory near Pindwara, India.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Patel is the most common last name in Gujarat, the home of Lord Swaminarayan. Born in 1781, he preached the reformed Hinduism that bears his name. It stresses the importance of chastity, resurrected special dietary laws and created a strict code of conduct for the faith's monks, called "saints." Once they join the order, saints are forbidden from contact with women, including their mothers. A community of affluent businessmen, Gujaratis came to America in waves after 1965, the year the quota of Indians allowed into the United States changed from 100 to 20,000 per year. Hemant Brahmbhatt, editor of Sandesh, a Gujarati-language newspaper here, estimates more than half the Indians in the Chicago area are Gujarati - mirroring the trend Katz found in the country as a whole. At the Bartlett temple, there are so many Patels that the switchboard operator will ask for help in narrowing down the possibilities, as in, "Are you looking for engineer Bharat Patel?" One of the greatest factors contributing to the growth of the Swaminarayan faith, said religion scholar Raymond Williams of Wabash College, is the building of monuments. "It becomes a showplace for their message," said Williams, who has followed the Bartlett sect since its inception in a rented VFW hall in Glen Ellyn. The temple in Bartlett, which began with six families in 1971, has more than 1,000 regular devotees now. That number is fluid, said the temple's Kalpesh Patel, and can jump to 5,000 on festival days and to more than 10,000 when Pramukh Swami Maharaj flies in for an appearance. The saffron-robed "pope" of the sect, Pramukh Swami leads the temple's daily activities by phone and faxes from India. "This is a very affluent community and they want to make a serious gesture," said University of Chicago's religion expert Wendy Doniger. Referring to the cathedrals of the Christian faith, she added, "They want to show they're equal partners." Miracle on Route 59 Every morning, as she rushes to ready for her job as a nurse at Alexian Brothers Medical Center, 26-year-old Anila Patel takes a moment to speak softly to the painting of Lord Swaminarayan. "Get up, get up. It's time to get up," the Streamwood woman urges him. "In my mind, I get him ready - I wash him, I feed him," she said. "I try to remember what he was wearing at the temple." In the temple, the priest literally washes the marbled gods, dresses them and places food before them. But in homes around the suburbs, families also have small idols or paintings. They perform the same gestures in a mental form. <TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=0 width=200 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD class=photocaption>Devotees of the Swaminarayan faith pray for peace during a special prayer service at the Bartlett temple.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>They, too, are trying to close the gap between god and man. "If an elephant tries to speak to an ant, there is the problem of size. They cannot communicate, because their mouths are different sizes," said Carol Stream resident Kalpana Patel, one of the temple's volunteers. "So the ant tries to make the elephant more like itself," she said. "It pretends that the elephant is the same size as the ant. That's what we are trying to do." Caring for gods as humans is hardly different from placing a doll in a crèche and adoring it as the baby Jesus, said Doniger. Thinking of statues as the embodiment of the divine is not as foreign as it might seem. In the Christian communion service, the wafer becomes the body of Christ; wine becomes his blood. <TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=0 width=200 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD class=photocaption>Sculpture inside the vistors center to Akshardham, the main monument to the Swaminarayan faith.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>In 1995, thousands of people in Delhi began spoon-feeding statues of the elephant god, Ganesh, after rumors spread that milk placed before the idol in a temple had disappeared. Scientists on TV showed that the capillary action on the milk's surface caused drops to cling to the trunk, making it look like Ganesh was drinking. Still, the "milk miracle" created a frenzy, spreading from Delhi to Calcutta to Bombay and causing the price of a liter of milk to jump from 6 rupees to 100 rupees - or from 12 cents to $2. Miracles are commonplace in India, where the dividing line between the material and the spiritual is much less defined than here, said Williams. But when miracles start happening in American temples, it also becomes a way of creating sacred ground. That is exactly what happened in Bartlett last November on the occasion of annakut, a ceremony during which women cooked more than 2,500 dishes to offer the deities. A newcomer to the faith, Anila Patel does not consider herself a devoted volunteer. But she took the time to cook sev, a kind of Indian noodle made with wheat flour. "There are people who have been going for years," she said. "I don't understand why God chose me." Temple authorities say Lord Swaminarayan manifested himself before her eyes, reaching out and taking a bite - then a second and a third - from a plate of round Indian sweets, called ladoos. "I saw him pick it up and take a bite," said Anila Patel. "Then he smiled at me," she said. She was sitting at the far back of the temple's shrine room, in the section designated for women, which is out of sight of the Lord Swaminarayan statue she saw in her vision. She had no way of knowing, said Harish Patel, that there was a plate of ladoos before the idol. As soon as her vision was over, she told others about it. When they went to inspect the plate of sweets, they found several of the ladoos missing - and the plate had been disturbed. That same week, a young woman at the BAPS Swaminarayan temple in Atlanta reported seeing the god drink grape juice. This time, temple workers found a crushed straw and a half-empty glass. "In Gujarat," said Harish Patel, "there are several temples that are known for being places where God comes and eats during annakut. But this is the first time it's happened here." Anila Patel said she visited Gujarat soon after her vision and was surprised to find the news preceded her. "I was sitting in a temple in Nadiad waiting for my husband," she said. "I overheard two women saying, 'Did you know that in Chicago a girl saw Lord Swaminarayan eating ladoos?'" Embarrassed, she let them walk away without telling them she was that girl. India's future here The Swaminarayan temple in Bartlett will be the biggest in North America. It is a metaphor, perhaps, for the impact Indian immigrants are having on the suburbs. There are 125,000 living here now. More than any other ethnic group in the Chicago area, they make the suburbs their home. But, as evidenced by the many houses of worship here now, they can never leave India entirely behind. "Just as on every street corner there's a different type of church, Indians also have different types of temples," said Subrahmanyam Vemuri, president of the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago. Located in Lemont, that temple's attendees finished a $4.5 million community center in 2001. There are 17 Hindu temples in the greater Chicago area. All of them are built primarily with donations from Indian immigrants. Many are expanding, which underscores both the growth of the Indian community as well as its growing wealth. <TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=0 width=200 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD class=photocaption>In the Swaminarayan temple in Ahmedabad, a devotee walks clockwise around the shrine, barefoot.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>The Balaji Temple in Aurora added 50 acres to its 20-acre site last October and is in the midst of a $4 million expansion, said temple manager Tulsi Das Kakarala. Other Indian faiths are growing, too. The Sikhs are finishing a new $2 million temple in Palatine. Elsewhere, a $1.5 million mosque is coming to Schaumburg to serve the Indian Muslim community. It is being designed so that one of its walls can easily be knocked down to accommodate growth. Devotees of the Jain Temple, just up Route 59 from the Swaminarayans, are waiting for a permit to begin a $5 million expansion, said temple president Niranjan Shah. "We are all trying to recreate India here," Vemuri said. For all of them, it's a labor of love. A way of making a mark in new ground. Most of all, it's a way to ensure they never forget who they are. When Harish Patel walks inside the nascent Bartlett temple, he closes his eyes and lets the sandalwood incense wash over him. "Am I in India?" he thinks. "Or am I here?"

Oaths of a Swaminarayan Devotee Following strict daily disciplines reaps rewards of guru's grace and spiritual progress According to the basic philosophy of the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), the purpose of all sadhanas (spiritual disciplines) is striving to please and receive the grace of the guru, for only by the grace of the guru can one attain liberation from the cycle of birth and death. All the practices of BAPS members are aimed at expressing the Hindu ideals of satya (truth), daya (compassion), ahimsa (nonviolence), brahmacharya (celibacy) and asteya (nonstealing), which are five of the Vedic yamas and niyamas, Hinduism's code of conduct. When they are initiated, members take an oath to abide by eleven disciplines: 1. No violence: not to abuse, hurt or kill anyone, not even an insect; 2. No adultery: not to commit adultery, or associate overmuch with the opposite sex; 3. No meat: not to eat meat or take medicines derived from animal products; 4. No alcohol: not to consume alcoholic drinks or take medicines containing alcohol; 5. No suppression: not to suppress or take advantage of helpless people, such as widows; 6. No suicide: not to commit or even contemplate suicide; 7. No theft: not to steal, or even pick a flower without the owner's permission; 8. No slander: not to backbite or malign the character or life of another; 9. No vilification: not to speak against other Deities or religions, but to respect all faiths; 10. No impurity: not to take food which is impure, not prepared with filtered water or prepared by unknown hands (all Swaminarayan devotees also avoid eating onions and garlic); 11. No atheistic association: not to keep the company of atheists or lend one's ears to lectures given by nonbelievers. In order to progress on the path, BAPS devotees also engage in spiritual practices that express the higher ideals of dharma (righteousness), jnana (wisdom), vairagya (detachment) and bhakti (devotion). These include: refraining from addiction to nicotine, marijuana and other drugs and intoxicating substances; maintaining a sense of respect for parents and elders; donating one-tenth or one-twentieth of their earnings to the organization; reading the scriptures of the Swaminarayan Sampradaya daily; attending weekly spiritual discourses and assemblies; fasting on Ekadashi, the eleventh day of each half of each lunar month; striving to develop attachment only to God and not to material things; personally performing puja every morning after bathing and before eating or drinking anything; attending daily arati in the mandir or at home; offering food to God before eating; chanting the Swaminarayan mantra daily; performing mental worship of God and the guru; singing devotional songs regularly; going regularly to the nearby mandir for darshan of the Deities; performing regular seva, selfless service, in the organization's activities; getting together with the entire family daily for a half-hour of prayer, scriptural reading and personal discussion; and observing Hindu festival days. http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2005/1-3/30-37_houston_temple.shtml

the quite can only be said to be true when associated with BAPS

quit talking to yourself.

thanks. this is my point exactly. all they can to is criticise the good work baps is doing. When there own sampradaya is filled with crooks and murders. How is that what Lord Swaminarayan wanted? He is dilutaed.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eyes_manish/1942839062/in/set-72157594227657460/ Saintliness and Prayers - The real and only anchorage and guiding force of BAPS Swaminarayan sect and reason for its amazing progress unparalleled in history of Indian Culture. Celebrating 100 years now, BAPS is worth for its purity, saintliness not just amongst its team of around 800 saints, but for all associated with it, are graced with this divinity and pure life:-)

LIES with no evidence. wheres you're proof?

India is holy because that's where the majority of the history of Hinduism happened. And that's where most hindus are. As a non-Indian Hindu I don't expect you to hold India in any special or sacred regard. You can believe what you want. But most Hindus are indian, you converted to the wrong religion, if have a problem with India or Indians. Hinduism has been indianized, because that's the culture and region it grew out of. As hinduism grows more diverse other cultures can make their staple and found different rites and sampradayas.

http://news.iskcon.com/first_hindu_temple_be_built_china First Hindu Temple to be Built in China It is one of the grandest Hindu temples in the capital and has been built with a lot of thought and precision. An architectural marvel, the Akshardham temple is the cynosure of all eyes. Soon a replica of it will be constructed, thousands of miles away in China. The first Hindu temple in communist China. The Chinese government has invited the Swaminarayan Trust that runs the Akshardham temples in Noida and in Gandhinagar, to build a similar temple. A huge piece of land has been earmarked in Fohsan state, which will not only house the temple but also an Indian cultural centre. "Initial thoughts are to have a cultural centre also along with the temple, a traditional Indian music learning centre and also various Indian language teaching centres including Hindi, on this temple premises," said Jagat Shah, Joint Secretary-General, Indo-China Trade Council. The Swaminarayan Trust has welcomed the decision, saying there's much more to it than the religious angle. "This decision taken by Chinese government, letting the Hindus build a temple in China is to be appreciated highly. Its not only question of spirituality but also in many other ways both the countries will benefit. There will also be cultural exchange between people living in these two countries and that outcome will help in spiritual and physical growth of citizens of India and China," said Jasraj Maharaj, religious guru in the Swaminarayan Sect. A core team of the trust is busy preparing the final design plan. Members of the team and the Indo-China Trade Council are expected to visit the proposed temple site soon. A team of officials from one of China's prestigious construction companies that will execute the project is now in India to study the architecture of Swaminarayan temple. "China is also very good at construction and especially our company actually focuses on various types of construction designs. I think this being a joint venture with Indian partner, design from India and construction from China, this temple will be the masterpiece," said Xiaojun Lee, Secretary of Board, Panzhihua Guanghua Group, PR China. The first Hindu temple in the land of dragons will not just be a temple but the hub of cultural exchange between India and China.

UPDATE Swamishri in New York New York Portal

Toronto Vicharan Toronto Portal $40 million Toronto Hindu temple, remarkable structure opens on July 22, 2007 Location: Just across the 18-acre site sits the Haveli- a community centre at Highway 427 and Finch, Toronto, Torornto, July 20, 2007 Randeep Gill The Swaminarayan Mandir, one of the most extraordinary and remarkable structure/buildings for Canadians, at the cost $40 million, will be inaugurated in Toronto on Sunday, July 22, 2007. The Mandir project was started in 2005 and finished in 18 months. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Toronto Mayor David Miller are expected to attend the opening ceremonies on July 22, 2007 Most of the people shocked to read that how somebody can build whole temple with a hammer and chisel. There are about 200, 000 Hindus in Toronto, according to Statistics Canada which paid for the $40 million building without any public or foundation funding. They also provided 400 volunteer workers. The chief engineer, Akshay Muni Swami; a Hindu monk told reporters: No steel is used and stones piled on stones. There are 340 pillars- solid rock used as columns and 84 ceilings decorated with all with carved pieces The temple was designed according to ancient Vedic principles. The mandir was built using 24,000 pieces of marble (Italian marble and Turkish limestone) and limestone carved by hand in India, labelled, then shipped to Canada and assembled here. This include 5 metric tons, heaviest stone 50 grams, lightest stone 2,393 metric tons Turkish limestone 2,050 metric tons Italian Carrara marble 1,349 tonnes Indian sandstone Every inch of the place is embellished with carved deities - cavorting horses, peacocks, elephants and lotus flowers using hammer and chisel by close to 2,000 craftsmen involved at 26 different sites in India , 100 of them flown from India The Indo-Canadian Museum of Cultural Heritage was set up at ground level Suresh Thakrar, a community leader says, "This is a place open to all and a place to educated about Indo-Canadians." Nitya Vivek Swami, a Hindu monk, who has also worked on similar buildings in Houston, Chicago and London said, "We believe this is a living building, so it has to be built in a certain way." Vinay Gidwaney, a volunteer said, " You don't have to be of any faith or religious background just take your shoes off and you're all set." Naren Sachdev, a project manager said, each piece was marked with a bar code to facilitate construction. He estimated the the building will last a thousand years. Because of Canadian winters, there was a hurdle for convincing city officials that the mandir is a completely steel-free structure The auspicious murti-pratishtha ceremony will be held in the presence of Pramukh Swami Maharaj on Sunday 22 July 2007. This historic occasion will be broadcast live throughout the world on AASTHA TV and TV Asia-Sahara ONE channels, as per the times given above and technical details below. Indian Standard Time: 7.00 to 10.30 pm Canadian / US Eastern Time: 9.30 am to 1.00 pm UK Time: 2.30 to 6.00 pm DTH broadcast service in USA (DIRECTV - World Direct Package - Channel No. 2005) DTH broadcast service in UK(BSKYB - Channel No. 808) DTH broadcast service in Canada(Rogers's Digital Cable via ATN) India, Asia, Africa, Australia & Europe (‘C-Band’) – Aastha TV & Aastha International – Free-to-Air Satellite Television Channels: In addition, the broadcast can be seen in USA on TV Asia and Sahara ONE (Dish Network). For USA : TV ASIA is available on Dish Network and cable SAHARA ONE is available on Dish Network, AASTHA TV is available on DIRECTV For Canada : ATN (AASTHA TV) http://www.nriinternet.com/NRIhindu/NRI_Temples/Canada/Ontario/Swaminarayan_Mandir/index.htm Haveli Commencement Ceremony

Upholding the charitable tradition THEY DON'T GET as much recognition as the Salvation Army or the Red Cross, but they perform on a smaller scale just like the big guys. I'm talking about BAPS Care International, a disaster relief agency associated with the Hindu religion. This year marks the organization's 100th anniversary. They keep a relatively low profile. But for decades they have toiled on the front lines after major disasters. Some of the worst ones were on the Indian subcontinent. Since being founded in the Indian state of Gujarat, they've extended relief work to many hard-to-reach corners of South Asia. I first learned about BAPS in January 2005, a few days into the new year, after the deadly tsunami struck more than a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean, leaving 200,000 dead and millions more homeless. BAPS' local religious community was holding a prayer vigil to which I'd invited myself. In addition to praying and speech-making, the members of the local BAPS Swaminarayan temple in Clifton, one of 90 such temples in the country, had mobilized others in the North Jersey community to collect money and non-perishable goods to distribute to the stricken areas. A lot of energy was being generated toward doing something constructive to repair the unfathomable damage done in that natural disaster. More than a week after the tsunami had changed the lives of millions, the extent of damage was still being assessed. Before the dust had settled, BAPS had joined two other relief partners, eventually delivering $7 million in supplies to isolated regions, some of them rendered even more remote by the tsunami that washed away familiar landmarks, homes, roads and hope. My next encounter with this group was later in 2005 as volunteers headed for New Orleans. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, BAPS was serving food and arranging for temporary shelter, among other services. Working alongside other relief groups after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast, BAPS made essential services available on location while communities in New Jersey and elsewhere collected money. The New Orleans project The BAPS New Jersey office coordinated 530 trained volunteers traveling to the Gulf Coast from Houston and other parts of the South and Southeast to work at the organization's New Orleans project. "Some of the Red Cross workers were the first ones getting hot meals from us," said the group's Nilkanth Patel. Through BAPS, rooms were arranged for other relief workers and victims fleeing New Orleans. Patel continued disaster relief work with Katrina victims when he got back to Houston, coordinating programs for housing, counseling and other services. "We got our medical teams coming from throughout the country to start helping the clinics in Houston serve the victims who relocated there. Some of those activities lasted for months," said Patel. A pharmacist by profession, he has since been named president of BAPS Charities. Lenin Joshin, media coordinator at BAPS national headquarters in Piscataway, said doctors and psychologists had been mobilized by the organization in September 2001 as well. "Our medical team was in New York helping with the problems related to trauma and psychological shock and provided counseling to the victims of the World Trade Center," Joshin said. Among the largest and fastest-growing ethnic groups in the state, the South Asian community is expecting 20,000 people to attend BAPS' 100th anniversary official celebration, to be held in Continental Arena tomorrow. The yearlong commemoration of the BAPS centennial includes next Saturday's family day in Edison, and a recent women's conference. Another program this week was for Indian children. Its aim is to get the youth to discuss issues of religious and cultural pride. Although socializing and preserving cultural traditions are important goals of the events planned during the year of celebration, they serve another end. They create another generation conscious of selfless giving, the core of the BAPS charitable tradition. BAPS Charities

I think the bickering needs to stop, it's only taking away from the satsang. Your bickering isn't gonna make BAPS go away. It's better to try in correct problems in your own sect then to complain about BAPS.

Regional BAPS Shatabdi Utsav Video Edison Portal

Edison, NJ Sunday, July 29, 2007 2007 BAPS Women's Conference - Women: Invigorating Self and Society http://www.swaminarayan.org/news/usa/2007/07/edison/july29-womenconference.htm

BAPS Toronto Portal Pramukh Swami Maharaj's Toronto Visit 2007 1/2 Pramukh Swami Maharaj's Toronto Visit 2007 2/2

BAPS Houston Visit Portal Pramukh Swami Maharaj's Houston Visit 2007 1/1 BAPS Jacksonville Visit Portal Pramukh Swami Maharaj's Jacksonville Visit 2007 1/3 Pramukh Swami Maharaj's Jacksonville Visit 2007 3/3

Pramukh Swami Maharaj's North America Visit 2007 BAPS Houston pic BAPS Chicago Visit Portal Pramukh Swami Maharaj's Chicago Visit 2007 1/2 Pramukh Swami Maharaj's Chicago Visit 2007 2/2

I really don't see how anyone can justify eating meat an be considered a vaishnava. It's clear as day that no vaishnava scriptures except meat eating.

how do you to this magazine!

Lord Swaminarayan Artwork on Flickr by PrASanGaM BAPS Murtis jays_accord Artwork

what a great saying hopefully mahesh will remember it.

hmm. but why is it that so many people are fleeing the so-called "Original Sampradaya" and coming to BAPS temples for Darshan and worship? People do not feel the presence of God at such corrupted places. Jai Swaminarayan.

Those who protect Lord Swaminarayans Dharma, are the true devotees of God. BAPS fits in this catergory. The Ahmedavad/Vadtal crooks aren't respecting what Lord Swaminarayan taught. They are not protectors of his dharm.