Like many of us in Sydney’s Indian community this festive season, the NSW Premier visited a Hindu temple to wish revellers a Happy Diwali.
The difference though was that his visit was to see the progress at a construction site – that of the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) coming up in Kemps Creek in the west of Sydney.
The new temple is situated in a sprawling 25-acre site, and is set to become the largest traditional stone temple in the Australia-New Zealand region.
As such, it is the pride of the BAPS community in Sydney, and its significance was not lost on the Premier.
“I haven’t seen a building on this scale before – it’s really impressive,” Mr Minns said during the visit. “As we’ve got a growing population, there needs to be places of worship like these for those emerging communities.”
The Premier studied the progress made on the mandir (temple) construction and engaged with community leaders and project representatives.
Stage one of the build, expected to be completed in 2024, will encompass the development of essential infrastructure, including a car park, a children’s playground, and a cultural precinct for weekly congregations.
The second phase will see the construction of the traditional stone temple.
Temple authorities are confident the new structure of BAPS Temple Kemps Creek will become a cultural landmark in Western Sydney.
The Premier seemed to agree.
“As you see more industry and infrastructure coming to the area alongside the Western Sydney Airport, this temple is going to be a real feature for Western Sydney,” he said.
He added, “It will also kick off a lot of economic activity, as an unintended but a positive side effect.”
The Minister for Multiculturalism Steve Kamper who accompanied Mr Minns lauded the mandir as a symbol of Western Sydney’s rich and diverse cultural heritage. “It is going to be a showcase of our wonderful multicultural community,” Mr Kamper said. “I am absolutely blown away by the craftsmanship here. You can see there’s much more to come, but it’s truly starting to take shape.”
The groundbreaking ceremony for the temple took place in 2021. In a moving event, this saw the entire congregation participate as a group. Some 3000 bricks had been distributed to devotee households across Sydney; each brick was worshipped at home in a Vedic ceremony, led by a centralised live webcast. On the appointed day, they brought the bricks to the site, and helped place them in the foundation of the construction, accompanied by the chanting of Vedic hymns.
Thousands of well-wishers also visited the site then to help lay the worshiped bricks in the foundation.
“The BAPS Temple Kemps Creek will be here long after we’ve all gone. This is a really proud legacy to leave to future generations,” Mr Minns said after his most recent visit.
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