Ram Mandir, Ayodhyaਰਾਮ ਮੰਦਰ, ਅਯੁੱਧਿਆ

The Ram Mandir is the grand Hindu temple complex at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, built on the site that Hindu tradition holds to be Ram Janmabhoomi, the birthplace of Lord Ram. Consecrated on 22 January 2024, after India's Supreme Court settled the site's long-running title dispute in 2019, it is the largest and most-visited new temple India has built in generations, drawing around 100,000 devotees a day.

A temple built to last a thousand years

The mandir follows the Nagara style, the North Indian school of temple architecture defined by a curving shikhara over the sanctum, built here in the Maru-Gurjara idiom of western India. It rises 161 feet (49 metres) over three storeys, measures 380 feet east to west and 250 feet north to south, and is held up by 392 carved pillars and 44 doors.

The trust that runs the temple says no iron or steel was used in the superstructure. Instead, stones are interlocked and set with copper joints in the ancient manner, over a 14-metre roller-compacted concrete foundation and a 21-foot granite plinth that keeps ground moisture away from the masonry. The design target is a working life of more than a thousand years.

The main body is Bansi Paharpur pink sandstone from Rajasthan, with Makrana marble lining the inner sanctums. Five mandapas, the Nritya, Rang, Sabha, Prarthana and Kirtan halls, wrap the garbhagriha: the ground floor holds the Ram Darbar, the first floor the Ram Lalla sanctum, and the second floor is kept reserved.

Why does the Ram Mandir stand at this exact spot?

Hindu tradition holds this ground in Ayodhya to be the birthplace of Ram, the seventh avatar of Vishnu and the hero of the Ramayana, and the spot has been a focus of worship for centuries. A mosque, the Babri Masjid, stood on the same site from 1528-29 until it was demolished in December 1992, and the rival claims to the land fed one of modern India's longest legal disputes.

In a unanimous verdict on 9 November 2019, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court awarded the disputed 2.77 acres to Ram Lalla Virajman for the construction of a temple, and directed that five acres at Dhannipur be allotted to the Sunni Waqf Board for a mosque. Parliament created the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra trust in February 2020 to build and manage the temple, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi performed the bhumi pujan, the ground-breaking ceremony, on 5 August 2020.

Who designed and built the Ram Mandir?

The design comes from the Sompura family of Ahmedabad, hereditary temple architects who say they have practised the Nagara idiom for at least fifteen generations and have worked on more than a hundred temples, including the reconstruction of Somnath. Chief architect Chandrakant Sompura drew the first plan in 1988 and, with his architect sons Nikhil and Ashish Sompura, revised it in 2020 to the Vastu Shastra and Shilpa Shastra canons.

Construction was led by Larsen and Toubro with Tata Consulting Engineers in support, and the temple opened to the public the day after its consecration, on 23 January 2024.

The Ram Lalla idol at the heart of the temple

The presiding deity is Ram Lalla, the infant form of Ram. The 51-inch murti was carved from a single Krishna Shila black stone from Karnataka by the Mysuru sculptor Arun Yogiraj, and installed as the main deity during the pran pratishtha ceremony on 22 January 2024, performed by 121 Vedic scholars led by Lakshmikant Dixit with the prime minister as yajman. The older idol that had stood at the site since 1949 now serves as the utsava murti, the idol carried in festivals.

Every Ram Navami at noon, a system of mirrors and lenses directs a beam of sunlight onto the idol's forehead, a mechanical tilak the trust calls Surya Tilak.

What is inside the 70-acre complex?

The mandir itself occupies about 2.7 acres of a walled 70-acre complex ringed by a 732-metre parikrama path. Inside the boundary stand a pilgrim facility centre built for 25,000 people, a museum, a research centre, a goshala and a Yajna Shala.

Seven smaller shrines honour Valmiki, Vasishta, Vishwamitra, Agastya, Nishad Raj, Shabari and Ahilya, figures from the Ramayana, while shrines to Surya, Bhagwati, Ganesha and Shiva stand at the corners, with Annapurna and Hanuman temples on the northern and southern arms. Ramps, lifts and rest areas make the complex accessible to elderly and differently-abled visitors.

Can anyone visit the Ram Mandir?

Yes. Darshan is free and open to all, and the temple's opening drew more than half a million visitors on the first day; the daily count has since settled at around 100,000. Ayodhya's new Maharishi Valmiki International Airport opened in December 2023 to carry the pilgrim traffic, and the pleasant months from October to March are the best time to visit.

Photography is restricted inside the temple, and visitors pass through security before joining the darshan lines. See Jugti's Mandirs in India guide for the country's other great shrines.