The Shankheshwar Parshvanath Jain Temple is a

Jain temple A Jain temple, Derasar (Gujarati: દેરાસર) or Basadi (Kannada: ಬಸದಿ) is the place of worship for Jains, the followers of Jainism. Jain architecture is essentially restricted to temples and monasteries, and Jain buildings ge ...

located in the municipality

Wilrijk Wilrijk (; former, original spelling: ''Wilrijck'') is a district of the municipality and city of Antwerp in the Belgian province of Antwerp. Wilrijk had been a separate municipality before January 1, 1983; the enlarged municipality of Antwerp wa ...

Antwerp Province Antwerp Province (; ; ; ), between 1815 and 1830 known as Central Brabant ( , , ), is the northernmost Provinces of Belgium, province both of the Flemish Region, also called Flanders, and of Belgium. It borders on the North Brabant province of t ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

. It is currently the only Jain temple in

continental Europe Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous mainland of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by som ...

History

The building has a surface area of 1,000 m² and has been in use since 2010. Construction started in 1990 in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. After it was completed in 2000, the building was dismantled piece by piece, shipped to Belgium and rebuilt on its current location. The white marble design is inspired by traditional Jain Temples.

About temple

It is the biggest Jain temple outside of India. The temple houses an information centre about

Jainism Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, Indian religion whose three main pillars are nonviolence (), asceticism (), and a rejection of all simplistic and one-sided views of truth and reality (). Jainism traces its s ...

References

Citations

Sources

* * Chris De Lauwer, "Een Indiase tempel in België", in: Idesbald Goddeeris (red.), ''Het wiel van Ashoka. Belgisch-Indiase contacten in historisch perspectief'', 2013, p. 233-240

External links