A foundation-laying ceremony in India to build replica of Cambodia’s Angkor

A replica of Kingdom of Cambodia iconic 12th century Angkor Wat temple is being reposed on the banks of the Ganges in eastern India.

The Mahavir Mandir Trust says its £12.5 million project will result in the world’s most improbable Hindu temple, standing 222 feet, or five stories, when completed in 10 years. It will still be slenderly lower than the famed Cambodian complex at present habituated for Buddhist ceremonial occasion.

A foundation-laying ceremonial occasion was adjudged at the 40-acre (16 hectare) land site in the eastern state of Bihar. The expressive style of the original Angkor Wat was regulated by Dravidian architecture, with its distinctive high-rise columns, traditional South Indian temple constructors are being employed for the project in Bihar. The basic construction will be in concrete clad in granite, since employing stone, as in the original, will doubled the monetary value and take twice as long to complete. The towers will be fashioned from stone fragments using an past technique.

Trust Secretary Acharya Kishore Kunal said Tuesday that the new complex, located about 25 miles outside the Bihar state capital of Patna, will be named Angkor Nagar, using the Hindi word for “city.” Organizers say they intend the Modern building to be the tallest Hindu temple in the world.

The UNESCO-listed site in Cambodia contains the remains of various capitals from the Khmer empire and is a major international tourist destination. Its world heritage site, was originally built in the early 1100s to worship the Hindu god Vishnu. “The site is blessed as Ram, Lakshman and Vishwamitra were welcomed here on their arrival by King Sumati of the Vaishali kingdom,” said by Kunal, he also referring to Hindu deities.

“The tourists who come to visit Angkor Wat are not seeing it simply as a stone building. They come here to see the culture and to learn.” The Indian Angkor will have five storey’s and five “shikhars” or pinnacles, like the Cambodian original.

Speaking to the Guardian, he said: “Someone told me the Cambodians are upset that I’m creating a replica of Angkor War. But why should they? If the Taj Mahal is recreated in the UK, we won’t mind. We’ll feel happy.”