Swaminarayan temple

Swaminarayan, the founder of the Swaminarayan Sampraday, established temples, known as mandirs (Devnagari: मन्दिर), as part of his philosophy of theism and deity worship. These mandirs are known as Swaminarayan Hindu temples. Swaminarayan temples, like other Hindu temples, have walkways around the central shrine to allow worshipers to circumambulate the shrine. These are often decorated with designs and inlaid marble. The main shrine area is divided by railings. One side of the railing is reserved for women, as Swaminarayan propagated that men and women should be separated in temples to allow full concentration on god. Men do a specified number of prostrations (as decided by themselves). In front of the men's section, there is a small section reserved for ascetics and special guests. There is great variety in form and nature of the central images, in front of which are gold- or silver-plated doors that open during darshan.