What is being called the world's largest Sikh gurdwara outside India was inaugurated March 30 in London with a reported 40,000 people attending the opening ceremony

Christian Century, April 19, 2003

* What is being called the world's largest Sikh gurdwara (temple) outside India was inaugurated March 30 in London with a reported 40,000 people attending the opening ceremony. The ceremony began with the Sikh scriptures, the Guru Granth Sahib, being carried in procession from the former Southall gurdwara half a mile away to their new home.

The temple, which can accommodate 3,000 worshipers, took three years to build and cost just under $26 million, all of which was raised by London's Sikh community. "The ambition was to create a temple second only to the Golden Temple in Amritsar," said spokesman Parminder Singh Gareha.