monuments of “Huge Hinduism”

May 29, 2022 1:28 PM

The fashion for supersized temples in India.
posted by spamandkimchi (12 comments total)

That the article manages to avoid pregodwinning the thread is a quite remarkable feat (and sadly probably wise, as the author appears to be Delhi based). More broadly, I think it does make sense for an article in this setting to signal the clear danger signs of rising fascism in India while keeping a concerned rather than condemnatory tone. But my god did it require an astonishing amount of tiptoeing around the authoritarian elephant in the room.
posted by howfar at 2:19 PM on May 29, 2022 [10 favorites]

I'm sorry but I just can't help hearing the old Ken-L-Ration dog/god food commercial jingle.
posted by bartleby at 3:25 PM on May 29, 2022

"In Kesariya, Bihar, work has begun on yet another contender for the title of “largest Hindu temple in the world”: the Virat Ramayan Mandir (VRM), which hopes to accommodate twenty thousand worshippers one day. Originally intended as an enlarged replica of Angkor Wat, the “Virat Angkor Wat Ram Temple” (“virat” means enormous) had to alter its design and name after complaints from the Cambodian government in 2015. Following a quick makeover, the plans retain a Khmer inspiration—but while Angkor Wat was famously converted from a Hindu to a Buddhist shrine in the late 12th century, the new temple’s eighteen octangular spires will shelter numerous deities from the Hindu pantheon." (from article)

Ironically, probably the worst government in history left Angkor alone other some PR pictures.

"Restoration work was interrupted by the Cambodian Civil War and Khmer Rouge control of the country during the 1970s and 1980s, but relatively little damage was done during this period. Camping Khmer Rouge forces used whatever wood remained in the building structures for firewood, and a shoot-out between Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese forces put a few bullet holes in a bas relief. Far more damage was done after the wars, by art thieves working out of Thailand, which, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, claimed almost every head that could be lopped off the structures, including reconstructions."

The Grand Replica.
posted by clavdivs at 3:39 PM on May 29, 2022 [4 favorites]

The VRM design reminds me a bit of the Ryugyong Hotel.

Also, when we're talking about these, especially those of us who are Americans, remember our past fad for literally carving mountains into sculptures--Mount Rushmore, Stone Mountain in Georgia, and the still-and-probably-perpetually-in-progress Crazy Horse.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:23 PM on May 29, 2022 [3 favorites]

It's like living in a Neal Stephanson novel.
posted by Keith Talent at 6:32 PM on May 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

Work on the temple, which began in 2017, has been slow, however, and in 2019 an imposing 111.2-foot Shiva Lingam in Chenkal, Kerala revealed itself as the tallest devotional phallus in the country.

Overcompensating?
posted by gimonca at 7:49 PM on May 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

There are two "giant"statues of Shiva and Durga Ma in Mauritius; I think these were constructed with private money. The projects in this article sound like they're much larger.
posted by gimonca at 7:59 PM on May 29, 2022

>godwinning

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkshalle
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 8:55 PM on May 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

pre-godwinning
posted by clavdivs at 10:31 PM on May 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm a big fan of giant statues.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:47 PM on May 29, 2022

These are so big! The Akshardham complex in Delhi is already enormous and Extremely Disney-like (at least to this US visitor) and these new ones are on another level.
posted by janell at 11:56 PM on May 29, 2022

Came for Ganesh, but the biggest is in Thailand. And contemporary, 2012, so maybe big is not just for India.
posted by sammyo at 10:06 AM on May 30, 2022