Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull with Indian PM Narendra Modi at Akshardham Temple, Delhi

Last updated on 11th April 2017

Pics Courtesy: Facebook post of PM of India, Shri Narendra Modi, https://www.facebook.com/pg/narendramodi/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10158587068615165

Ravi: Just wonderful to see Australian PM and Indian PM together paying respects/worshiping at Akshardham temple. Very nice gesture from Australian PM.

Here is the website of Akshardharm: http://akshardham.com/

Some extracts from its wiki page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akshardham_(Delhi), are given below:

Akshardham or Swaminarayan Akshardham complex is a Hindu mandir, and a spiritual-cultural campus in New Delhi, India. Also referred to as Akshardham Temple or Swaminarayan Akshardham, the complex displays millennia of traditional Hindu and Indian culture, spirituality, and architecture.

The temple, which attracts approximately 70 percent of all tourists who visit Delhi, was officially opened on 6 November 2005 by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. It sits near the banks of the Yamuna adjacent to the 2010 Commonwealth Games village in eastern New Delhi. The temple, at the centre of the complex, was built according to the Vastu shastra and Pancharatra shastra.
...

The main attraction of the Swaminarayan Akshardham complex is the Akshardham Mandir. It rises 141-foot (43 m) high, spans 316-foot (96 m) wide, and extends 356-foot (109 m) long. It is intricately carved with flora, fauna, dancers, musicians, and deities.

Designed in accordance with the standards of Maharishi Vastu Architecture, it features a blend of architectural styles across India. It is entirely constructed from Rajasthani pink sandstone and Italian Carrara marble. Based on traditional Hindu architectural guidelines (Shilpa shastras) on maximum temple life span, it makes no use of ferrous metal. Thus, it has no support from steel or concrete.

The mandir also consists of 234 ornately carved pillars, nine domes, and 20,000 murtis of sadhus, devotees, and acharyas. The mandir also features the Gajendra Pith at its base, a plinth paying tribute to the elephant for its importance in Hindu culture and India's history. It contains 148 life sized elephants in total weighing a total of 3000 tons.

Under the temple's central dome lies the 11-foot (3.4m) high murti of Swaminarayan seated in abhayamudra to whom the temple is dedicated. Swaminarayan is surrounded by images of the faith's lineage of Gurus depicted either in a devotional posture or in a posture of service. Each murti is made of paanch dhaatu or five metals in accordance to Hindu tradition. The temple also houses the murtis of Sita Ram, Radha Krishna, Shiv Parvati, and Lakshmi Narayan.

--- end wiki extracts ---

Given below is a comment from my Facebook post,
https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/1890951474454754, which is a share of above mentioned FB post of PM Modi having the pics given above.

[In response to a comment that these pics were a photo-op creating an illusion (fooling people) regarding an Indian private company's industrial project in Australia that some environmentalists feel will damage the Great Barrier Reef:]
Ravi S. Iyer wrote:
Environmentally unsafe industrial projects are a big danger to people at large, in all countries of the world, including Australia and India. I support the people of Australia in ensuring that their environment is protected from any industrial projects, of Indian origin companies or any other companies. I do not know the details of the particular project mentioned in above comment with reference to possible damage to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and neither am in a position to get involved in the matter. But I do wish the Australian people all the best in their efforts to ensure that the Great Barrier Reef is protected from any damage by industrial projects.

But Australia-India relations cannot be viewed through a very limited prism of one Indian private company's industrial project in Australia. The pics that I have shared make no reference to any Indian private company at all!

Today, many countries in the world, including Australia and India, are confronted with savage terrorist attacks including lone-wolf attacks by people who seem to have got trapped in a perverted interpretation of one of the world's established religions.

Given that very worrying context, I find that these pics of the Australian PM and the Indian PM worshiping together in a Hindu temple, sends a message of religious tolerance and harmony to the Australian and Indian people, as well as to the world at large. Therefore I chose to share this message with my social media friends and followers. The message is that while there is some bad religion in the world today, the Australian and Indian PMs hailing from different religious traditions (Christianity and Hinduism) are showing that there is good religion too where different good religious traditions can co-exist peacefully and harmoniously with each other.

I and, I am sure, most of my social media friends and followers, will not view these pics as being related to any Indian private company's industrial project in Australia.
----

[I thank Indian PM Shri Narendra Modi and wikipedia, and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above pics and extracts from their post/website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]