The giant new Akshardham Mandir in east Delhi is jokingly referred to as the Disney Mandir. Devoted to the founder of the Swaminarayan sect, it features an animatronic tour of his life and an indoor boat ride modeled on Disneyland’s ‘It’s a Small World.’ I just had to see it when I was in Delhi last week.

While large, the complex isn’t as massive as it looks in photos. It’s perhaps one wing of an old-time Mughal fortress. The biggest thing about it is the truly impressive parking lot. You check your cell phone, camera and bag and enter carrying virtually nothing but your wallet. Your legs are patted down by a young boy seated cross-legged at the head of the security line while your torso is searched by another.

Once liberated of your earthly attachments, you pass through a large reception area under a very Buddhist-looking chandelier of bells. The wall battlements look like a cross between Buddhist stupas and Mughal decorations. The main temple is made of carved red stone with small elephants marching around the perimeter. At four corners are drainage spouts in the shape of a Chinese dragon.

The temple is laid out symmetrically like a church, with a central dome and four smaller ones in a plus rather than an extended cross. The golden idol in the center is arresting for two reasons: first, because it’s a statue of a man, the sect founder, and not one of the primary Hindu deities, who are scattered around the edges; and second, because the proportions are off. The head is a bit too large, the forearms slightly too long for the body.

As you wander around the temple, the primacy of Swaminarayan comes into focus. Some of the smaller domes’ ceilings have lovely fractal patterns or inverted cones with scooped out niches, like mosques. But others feature scenes in the life of the founder, which progress from childhood to beatification as you walk clockwise around the inside. The main axis of the temple, from entrance to back, is dedicated to Swaminarayan. Beneath the rear dome are relics from the man — a hair, a tooth — much like Muslim tombs in Turkey and Morocco. Perhaps the oddest manifestation of this obsession is that most of the carved figurines on the walls and statues have Swaminarayan’s distinctive nose, prominent and sharp.

The hagiographic paintings of the founder’s life by artist Ranjit Meghavi are quite beautiful and done in a popular style. All soft gradients, sepias and greens, Meghavi was Web 2.0 before the Internet existed. The idols on the inside are unusual in that all are milky white — neither Shiva nor Krishna get the azure; all are shown with their significant others; and all resemble each other, like a mannequin factory. Rama, Krishna, Narayan and Shiva made the cut, an eclectic assortment of primary deities and avatars.

The temple has modern touches like fluorescent backlights, visible sound amps and security cameras and a very modern control panel for lighting. The exterior decorations are regular enough that they look machine-cut. Surrounding the main temple is a moat where people pitch coins for luck. The security guards were constantly whistling away aunties who rushed the water trying to drink as if it were a holy tank.

To the left of the main temple is where the fun starts, the entertainment complex. You get a three-part ticket for the animatronics, a movie and a boat ride. The animatronics section is a low building. You’re ushered through all the rooms clockwise. It begins with a large rock of a partially extruded artist encased in a rock and chipping away. Behind him is a starry galaxy. I didn’t understand much of the old-skool pure Hindi of the narration. Next you get a 10-minute propaganda film about the greatness of Swaminarayan.

Now the fun starts. You are taken through four or five animatronic rooms representing scenes from the founder’s life, from a reverse loaves-and-fish miracles as a child (he brought the fish back to life) to his life as a turbaned, crested adult with an Amitabh Bachchan voice. Most of the scenes are Swaminarayan with his disciples seated under fabric-leaved trees in the dark, all very Rainforest Café. The language is shudh Hindi spoken in the honeyed, establishment tones of Mahabharata serials, and it’s creepy seeing a little boy statue move and talk jerkily, but the entire complex is too new and well-maintained to be kitsch. In a nation with a low cost of labor, it is a little odd seeing this as low-end animatronics rather than with live actors.

Everybody skips the movie and cuts straight to the boat ride. It’s a slow clockwise circuit around statues representing the greatness of Vedic India and ancient Indian scientists, leaders and all-round studs. This is the part where my dad would beam and bring all his friends. Except for the chain-drive embarkation area, the boats seem to be powered by nothing more than a steady water current.

Aside from the incongruity of a theme park inside a temple complex, there was still precious little cheese. I finally found what I was looking toward the exit, where a large restaurant area and souvenir shop aims at separating you from your money. The souvenir shop felt like visiting a martial arts store, full of specialized religious equipment, with all the cash register screensavers appropriately religion-themed. But two mantelpiece knicknacks were brilliant. They were visages of the Great Leader hollowed out into a concavity so that his eyes follow you while you move, only Rs. 7,000 ($159). There’s nothing more I’d want in my living room at night.

The Swaminarayan sect has also built impressively large temples in London, Chicago, Houston and Nairobi. The food was crap; the architecture owes a huge debt to non-Hindu traditions, innovations I appreciate; if you can overlook the filmi indoctrination, this would be an interesting family outing.

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