Ram Mandir, Ayodhya
Ram Mandir, Ayodhya
Ram Janmabhoomi (literally, "Rama's birthplace") is the name given to the site that is believed to be the birthplace of Rama, the seventh avatar of the Hindu deity Vishnu. The Ramayana states that the location of Rama's birthplace is on the banks of the Sarayu river in a city called "Ayodhya".
Some Hindus claim that the exact site of Rama's birthplace is where the Babri Masjid once stood in the present-day Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. According to this theory, the Mughals demolished a Hindu shrine that marked the spot, and constructed a mosque in its place. People opposed to this theory state that such claims arose only in the 18th century, and that there is no evidence for the spot being the birthplace of Rama.
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| Ram Mandir,Ayodhya |
The political, historical and socio-religious debate over the history and location of the Babri Mosque, and whether a previous temple was demolished or modified to create it, is known as the Ayodhya dispute.
In 1992, the demolition of the Babri Masjid by Hindu nationalists triggered widespread Hindu-Muslim violence.
Several other sites, including places in other parts of India, Afghanistan, and Nepal, have been proposed as birthplaces of Rama.
The five judges Supreme Court bench heard the title dispute cases from August to October 2019. On 9 November 2019, the Supreme Court ordered the land to be handed over to a trust to build the Hindu temple. It also ordered to the government to give alternate 5 acre land to Sunni Waqf Board to build the mosque. On 5 February 2020, the trust known as Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra was created by the Government of India. The trust will oversee the construction of the Ram Mandir. The foundation stone for construction of the temple was laid on 5 August 2020 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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| Ram Temple,Ayodhya |
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Ram Mandir, Ayodhya
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Proposed Architecture Design of Ram Temple at Ayodhya.
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Religion
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Affiliation
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Hinduism
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Deity
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Ram Lalla (infant form of Rama)
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Festivals
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Rama Navami, Diwali, Dussehra
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Location
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Location
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Ram Janmabhoomi, Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, India
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Geographic coordinates
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26.7956°N 82.1943°ECoordinates:
26.7956°N 82.1943°E
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Architecture
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Architect(s)
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Sompura family
(Chandrakant Sompura
Nikhil Sompura and Ashish Sompura)
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Creator
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Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra
Construction by Larsen & Toubro
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Groundbreaking
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5 August 2020
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Completed
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Under construction since 6 months, 3 weeks and 6 days
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Temple(s)
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1
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History
Ayodhya is regarded as one of the seven sacred cities of the Hindus, revered because of its association in the great Indian epic poem Ramayana with the birth of Rama and with the rule of his father, Dasharatha. According to this source, the town was prosperous and well fortified and had a large population.
In traditional history, Ayodhya was the early capital of the kingdom of Kosala, though in Buddhist times (6th–5th century BCE) Shravasti became the kingdom’s chief city. Scholars generally agree that Ayodhya is identical with the town of Saketa, where the Buddha is said to have resided for a time. Its later importance as a Buddhist centre can be gauged from the statement of the Chinese Buddhist monk Faxian in the 5th century CE that there were 100 monasteries there (although he cited 100, Faxian probably did not mean that exact number, just that there were many monasteries). There were also a number of other monuments, including a stupa (shrine) reputed to have been founded by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (3rd century BCE).
The Kanauj kingdom arose in Ayodhya, then called Oudh, during the 11th and 12th centuries CE. The region was later included in the Delhi sultanate, the Jaunpur kingdom, and, in the 16th century, the Mughal Empire. Oudh gained a measure of independence early in the 18th century but became subordinate to the British East India Company in 1764. In 1856 it was annexed by the British; the annexation and subsequent loss of rights by the hereditary land revenue receivers provided one of the causes of the Indian Mutiny in 1857. Oudh was joined with the Agra Presidency in 1877 to form the North-Western Provinces and later the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, now Uttar Pradesh state.
Despite the town’s great age, there are few surviving monuments of any antiquity. The Babri Masjid (“Mosque of Bābur”) was built in the early 16th century by the Mughal emperor Bābur on a site traditionally identified as Rama’s birthplace and as the location of an ancient Hindu temple, the Ram Janmabhoomi. Because of its significance to both Hindus and Muslims, the site was often a matter of contention. In 1990, riots in northern India followed the storming of the mosque by Hindu nationalists intent on erecting a temple on the site; the ensuing crisis brought down the Indian government. Two years later, on December 6, 1992, the three-story mosque was demolished in a few hours by a crowd of Hindu nationalists. It was estimated that more than 2,000 people died in the rioting that swept through India following the mosque’s destruction. An investigative commission led by Manmohan Singh Liberhan, a retired judge, was formed in 1992 but did not issue a report until 2009. The report, when it finally appeared, caused an uproar because it blamed several leading figures from the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party for the mosque’s destruction. A court ruling in 2010 divided the land between Hindus and Muslims, but that decision was overturned in 2019 by the Supreme Court, which entrusted the property exclusively to Hindus.
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| Babari Masjid |
Background
Rama, considered an incarnation of god Vishnu, is a widely worshiped Hindu deity. According to the ancient Indian epic, Ramayana, Rama was born in Ayodhya. In the 16th century, the Mughals constructed a mosque, the Babri Masjid which is believed to be the site of the Ram Janmabhoomi, the birthplace of Rama. A violent dispute arose in the 1850s.
In the 1980s, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), belonging to the Hindu nationalist family Sangh Parivar, launched a new movement to reclaim the site for Hindus and to erect a temple dedicated to the infant Rama (Ram Lalla) at this spot. In November 1989, the VHP laid the foundations of a temple on land adjacent to the disputed mosque. On 6 December 1992, the VHP and the Bharatiya Janata Party organised a rally at the site involving 150,000 volunteers, known as kar sevaks. The rally turned violent, and the crowd overwhelmed the security forces and tore down the mosque. The demolition resulted in several months of intercommunal rioting between India's Hindu and Muslim communities, causing the death of at least 2,000 people, and triggering riots all over the Indian subcontinent.
A 1978 and a 2003 archaeological excavation by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) found evidence indicating that Hindu temple remains had existed on the site.Archeologist KK Muhammad accused several historians of undermining the findings. Over the years, various title and legal disputes also took place, such as the passage of the Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya Ordinance, 1993. It was only after the 2019 Supreme Court verdict on Ayodhya dispute that it was decided the disputed land be handed over to a trust formed by the Indian government for the construction of a Ram temple. The trust was eventually formed under the name Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra. Five acres of land was allocated for the mosque elsewhere in the city. On 5 February 2020, it was announced in the Parliament that the Narendra Modi government had accepted a scheme to construct the temple.
Prior construction efforts
In the 1980s, the VHP collected funds and bricks with "Shree Ram" written on them. Later, the Rajiv Gandhi government gave the VHP permission for Shilanyas, with the then Home Minister Buta Singh formally conveying the permission to the VHP leader Ashok Singhal. Initially the centre and state governments had agreed upon the conducting of the Shilanyas outside of the disputed site. However, on 9 November 1989, a group of VHP leaders and Sadhus laid the foundation stone by digging a 200-litre (7-cubic-foot) pit adjacent to the disputed land. The singhdwar (transl. main entrance) of the sanctum was laid here. Kameshwar Chaupal (a Dalit leader from Bihar) became one of the first people to lay the stone.
Babri Masjid Site
The Ramayana, a Hindu epic whose earliest portions date back to 1st millennium BCE, states that the capital of Rama was Ayodhya. According to the local Hindu belief, the site of the now-demolished Babri Mosque in Ayodhya is the exact birthplace of Rama. The Babri mosque is believed to have been constructed during 1528–29 by a certain 'Mir Baqi' (possibly Baqi Tashqandi), who was a commander of the Mughal emperor Babur (r. 1526–1530). However, the historical evidence for these beliefs is scant.
In 1611, an English traveller William Finch visited Ayodhya and recorded the "ruins of the Ranichand [Ramachand] castle and houses". He made no mention of a mosque. In 1634, Thomas Herbert described a "pretty old castle of Ranichand [Ramachand]" which he described as an antique monument that was "especially memorable". However, by 1672, the appearance of a mosque at the site can be inferred because Lal Das's Awadh-Vilasa describes the location of birthplace without mentioning a temple or "castle". In 1717, the Moghul Rajput noble Jai Singh II purchased land surrounding the site and his documents show a mosque. The Jesuit missionary Joseph Tiefenthaler, who visited the site between 1766–1771, wrote that either Aurangazeb (r. 1658–1707) or Babur had demolished the Ramkot fortress, including the house that was considered as the birthplace of Rama by Hindus. He further stated that a mosque was constructed in its place, but the Hindus continued to offer prayers at a mud platform that marked the birthplace of Rama. In 1810, Francis Buchanan visited the site, and stated that the structure destroyed was a temple dedicated to Rama, not a house. Many subsequent sources state that the mosque was constructed after demolishing a temple.
Police officer and writer Kishore Kunal states that all the claimed inscriptions on the Babri mosque were fake. They were affixed sometime around 1813 (almost 285 years after the supposed construction of the mosque in 1528 CE), and repeatedly replaced.
Before the 1940s, the Babri Masjid was called Masjid-i-Janmasthan ("mosque of the birthplace"), including in the official documents such as revenue records. Shykh Muhammad Azamat Ali Kakorawi Nami (1811–1893) wrote: "the Babari mosque was built up in 923(?) A.H. under the patronage of Sayyid Musa Ashiqan in the Janmasthan temple in Faizabad-Avadh, which was a great place of (worship) and capital of Rama’s father"
H.R. Neville, the editor of the Faizabad District Gazetteer (1870), wrote that the Janmasthan temple "was destroyed by Babur and replaced by a mosque." He also wrote "The Janmasthan was in Ramkot and marked the birthplace of Rama. In 1528 A.D. Babur came to Ayodhya and halted here for a week. He destroyed the ancient temple and on its site built a mosque, still known as Babur's mosque. The materials of the old structure [i.e., the temple] were largely employed, and many of the columns were in good preservation."
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| Babari Masjid site dispute |
Proposed Ram Janmabhoomi temple
In 1853, a group of armed Hindu ascetics belonging to the Nirmohi Akhara occupied the Babri Masjid site, and claimed ownership of the structure. Subsequently, the civil administration stepped in, and in 1855, divided the mosque premises into two parts: one for Hindus, and the other for Muslims.
In 1883, the Hindus launched an effort to construct a temple on the platform. When the administration denied them the permission to do this, they took the matter to court. In 1885, the Hindu Sub Judge Pandit Hari Kishan Singh dismissed the lawsuit. Subsequently, the higher courts also dismissed the lawsuit in 1886, in favour of status quo. In December 1949, some Hindus placed idols of Rama and Sita in the mosque, and claimed that they had miraculously appeared there. As thousands of Hindu devotees started visiting the place, the Government declared the mosque a disputed area and locked its gates. Subsequently, multiple lawsuits from Hindus, asking for permission to convert the site into a place of worship.
In the 1980s, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and other Hindu nationalist groups and political parties launched a campaign to construct the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir ("Rama birthplace temple") at the site. The Rajiv Gandhi government allowed Hindus to access the site for prayers. On 6 December 1992, Hindu nationalists demolished the mosque, resulting in communal riots leading to over 2,000 deaths.
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| Proposed Ram Janmabhoomi temple |
In 2003, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) conducted excavations of the site on court orders. The ASI report indicated the presence of a 10th-century north Indian style temple under the mosque. Muslim groups and the historians supporting them disputed these findings, and dismissed them as politically motivated. The Allahabad High Court, however, upheld the ASI's findings. The excavations by the ASI were heavily used as evidence by the court that the predating structure was a massive Hindu religious building.
In 2009, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its election manifesto, repeating its promise to construct a temple to Rama at the site.
In 2010, the Allahabad High Court ruled that the 2.77 acres (1.12 ha) of disputed land be divided into 3 parts, with 1⁄3 going to the Ram Lalla or Infant Lord Rama represented by the Hindu Maha Sabha for the construction of the Ram temple, 1⁄3 going to the Muslim Sunni Waqf Board and the remaining 1⁄3 going to a Hindu religious denomination Nirmohi Akhara. All the three parties appealed against the division of disputed land to the Supreme Court.
The five judges Supreme Court bench heard the title dispute cases from August to October 2019. On 9 November 2019, the Supreme Court ordered the land to be handed over to a trust to build the Hindu temple. It also ordered to the government to give alternate 5 acre land to Sunni Waqf Board to build the mosque.On 5 February 2020, the trust known as Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra was created by the Government of India.
Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas (translation: Ram Birthplace Trust) is an organisation which was formed as a trust to promote and oversee the construction of a temple in Ayodhya, India at the Ram Janmabhoomi, the reputed site of the birth of Rama, the seventh and one of the most popular Avatars of Hindu God Vishnu. The Nyas was formed by members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council).
On 9 November 2019, the Supreme Court of India ruled to constitute a Trust to build a temple on the entire 2.77 acres of the land by Central Government not this Nyas. On 5 February 2020, the Central Government constituted the trust named Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra which was headed by Mahant Nritya Gopal Das.
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| Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas |
Construction of Ram Temple
The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra trust began the first phase of construction of the Ram Temple on March, 2020. The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi performed Bhoomi Pujan and laid the foundation stone of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on August 05, 2020.
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| Construction of Ram Temple |
The Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas (RJN) was founded as an independent trust by members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad on 25 January 1993 to take charge of the site of Ram Janmabhoomi and oversee the construction of the proposed Rama temple. Ramchandra Das Paramhans (1913–2003) was head of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas, succeeded upon his death by Nritya Gopal Das. Its members argued that the Nyas was created so that the Government of India would not control the site and end up involving itself in the construction of the temple. The RJN also operates workshops in Karsevakpuram (City of Volunteers), a major encampment of volunteer activists (called Karsevaks) outside Ayodhya preparing to undertake the construction of the temple.
The leaders of the RJN welcomed the decision of the Allahabad High Court to distribute the disputed territory into three parts, with one-third going to the Muslim Sunni Waqf Board and another to the Nirmohi Akhara Hindu denomination. However, the RJN claimed that it was the rightful party to take possession of the land and said it would appeal to the Supreme Court of India to seek possession of the entire site.
2019 Supreme Court verdict on Ayodhya dispute
The final hearing in the Supreme Court ended on 16 October 2019. The bench reserved the final judgment and granted three days to contesting parties to file written notes on 'moulding of relief' or narrowing down the issues on which the court is required to adjudicate.
The final judgement in the Supreme Court was officially declared on 9 November 2019. The Supreme Court dismisses the claim of Sunni Waqf Board and ordered that a trust to be made by the Government of India which be building the Temple. On 5 February 2020, the government announced the creation of the trust to be known as Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra. On 5 August 2020, Ram Mandir Bhoomi-poojan was performed in the presence of RSS Chief, Prime Minister and Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.
Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra
Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra is a trust set up for the construction and management of Shri Ram temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh by the Government of India. The trust has 15 trustees.
It was created as per the verdict of the Supreme Court of India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the formation of the trust in the Lok Sabha on 5 February 2020.
It was given the 2.77 acre (previously disputed) land as well as the 67.703 acre land acquired under the Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya Act, 1993 following the Supreme Court verdict in this regard.
The trust is led by Mahant Nrityagopal Das. Former Solicitor General of India and senior lawyer K. Parasaran, who represented Shri Ram Lalla Virajmaan in the Supreme Court, is also a member of the trust. Initially, the trust was led by Parasaran.
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| Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra |
Deity
Ram Lalla Virajman, the infant form of Rama, an avatar of Vishnu, is the presiding deity of the temple. Ram Lalla's dress will be stitched by tailors Bhagwat Prasad and Shankar Lal; Shankar Lal is a fourth generation tailor to Rama's idol.
Ram Lalla was a litigant in the court case over the disputed site since 1989, being considered a "juristic person" by the law. He was represented by Triloki Nath Pandey, a senior VHP leader who was considered as Ram Lalla's next 'human' friend.
Labels: Ayodhya, Geography, History, India, tourism, Uttar Pradesh
