Any tourist who travels to India, can not visit such places of worship as the temple of Lakshmi Narayana. Delhi, the capital of a fabulous country, attracts millions of visitors every year. The reason for this, of course, is the unique culture of India, which dates back more than one thousand years. The majestic temples of the leading religion in the country - Hinduism, unusual monks and pilgrims - the atmosphere of any local city makes a stranger feel in a real fairy tale. What are Indian pilgrims and monks worth! We will tell about this wonderful monument later in the publication.
Modern Delhi or Ancient India?
No exception is the capital of India, Delhi. The sights of Delhi, in fact, are very diverse - because it is the main city of the country, which has a developed space program and is famous for its programmers. Nevertheless, Westerners (and Russia and the CIS countries for the local population are no different from Europeans, at least in appearance) do not come to India to delve into the problems of our time. All of us are attracted by the living monuments of antiquity - and above all, the Hindu temples of India.
Imaginary Antiquity
It is interesting that most of the most popular temple complexes, which are valuable both for Hindus and for the ordinary traveler who came to the country to take a look at the features of culture and traditions, are not so old. This is where a city like New Delhi is different . India is a young country, despite a thousand-year history. Thanks to the image, almost everything that we see here seems to be covered in a veil of antiquity, but often this is far from the case, even when the conversation refers to the religious buildings of the city of Delhi. Sights, including the country's most famous temples Lakshmi Narayana, Radha Parthasarathi and the country's largest temple complex Akshardham, were built recently - at the end of the twentieth or even in the twenty-first century! What India really differs from is that it carefully preserves all the traditions of millennia-old antiquity, from Vedic times to the Middle Ages, maintaining a lively fire in them. Thanks to this attitude, cult architecture is perceived in this way.
Lakshmi Narayana Temple
This is probably the most popular temple for tourists in the country. It was created thanks to two well-known Indian philanthropists of the interwar period, father and son Dzhugar Kishor Birla and Baldeo Birla. Therefore, in fact, often the temple of Lakshmi Narayana is called by the name of these benefactors - the Birla temple. Lashkmi and Narayana, the deities to whom the religious construction is dedicated, is a married couple in which the first figure, the goddess of health, is more famous. Every year, thousands of Hindus pray in the temple, asking Lakshmi for well-being for his family and loved ones.
The construction of the religious building was carried out in the thirties of the last century, and the famous Mahatma Gandhi managed to take part in its construction. Today, the Lakshmi Narayana temple represents more than three hectares of buildings of different scale, a huge sacred garden. The architectural style of the temple is fully sustained in the traditional canons of the construction of sacred structures. The style of Lakshmi Narayana corresponds to the canons of building temples in the north of the country, and is called Nagara. So familiar to us is the idea of an Indian temple with thousands of sculptures on the walls of the building and just corresponds to this style. Sculptors and artists from the city of Varanasi decorated the main tower of the temple with a height of almost fifty meters with many frescoes, statues depicting scenes from the sacred texts of Hinduism.
Akshardham
The largest Hindu temple complex in India (and, accordingly, in the world) was built recently - in 2005. On its territory there are many museums. Perhaps it is due to the diversity of this place that three quarters of tourists visiting Delhi go here first. Unlike the Lakshmi Narayana temple, this complex combines all the architectural canons of the country. If you do not have enough money to see with your own eyes all the great cultures of India, then you should definitely visit at least Akshardham.
The religious building of Radha Parthasaratha
This temple is the third among the most famous and visited temples in Delhi. Unlike the previous ones, he is dedicated to the god Krishna. It also opened recently - in 1998. The temple can be called sacred not only for Hindus, but also for Hare Krishnas - for a long time the usual drop of exoticism in the mosaic of the modern city in the post-Soviet space. Its peculiarity also lies in the fact that the Vedic heritage of India plays a special role in the construction of the temple. It is located near the ancient capital of the Aryans, Indraprastha, and it is here, according to legend, that Krishna told the ancient prince Arjuna his teachings.