War Over the World's Largest Hindu Shrine

While Kunal claims that his competition is just an attempt to create the ‘most marvelous monument ever made by mankind’ and says, “I just want to make the largest Hindu temple in the world,'' not everyone sees this a gentle action of universal values. ''My competition is not with Cambodian culture, it's with the Hindu religious structure,'' he was qouted by The Sydney Morning Herald.

“Cambodians were predictably outraged about the project,” Damian Evans, the Director of Sydney University's archaeology project at Angkor Wat, was quoted in an article on SMH by Lindsay Murdoch who further said, “as I am sure Indians would be if a nearby country decided to build a clone of the Taj Mahal.” “The replica shows a remarkable lack of cultural sensitivity by this group in India, considering how central Angkor Wat is to Khmer [Cambodian] national identity,'' Evans said.

Critics see the Mahavir Mandir Trust’s attempt to create the replica as a senseless provocation, a disappointing poverty of creativity and a breach of universal values. “It is also an epic failure of imagination,'' Evans said. ''They really can't think of any more creative use for their $20 million than to build a concrete replica of something somebody built 800 years ago?''

However, it would take years to see if this place of worship can exhibit the Indian architectural wonders, mirror the great Indian culture to the world and can attract tourists from across the globe.