Ayodhya is a city situated on the banks of the Sarayu river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ayodhya district as well as the Ayodhya division of Uttar Pradesh, India.
Babri Masjid was a mosque in Ayodhya, India. It has been claimed to have been built upon the site of Ram Janmabhoomi, the legendary birthplace of Rama, a principal deity of Hinduism. It has been a focus of dispute between the Hindu and Muslim communities since the 19th century. According to the mosque's inscriptions, it was built in 1528–29 by Mir Baqi, a commander of the Mughal emperor Babur. Before the 1940s, the masjid was officially known as "Masjid-i-Janmasthan". The mosque was attacked and demolished by a Hindu nationalist mob in 1992, which ignited communal violence across the Indian subcontinent.
Ram Janmabhoomi is the site that, according to Hindu religious beliefs, is 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". Modern-day Ayodhya is in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is contested whether the Ayodhya mentioned in the Ramayana is the same as the modern city.
The Ayodhya dispute is a political, historical, and socio-religious debate in India, centred on a plot of land in the city of Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. The issues revolve around the control of a site regarded since at least the 18th century among many Hindus to be the birthplace of their deity Rama, the history and location of the Babri Masjid mosque at the site, and whether a previous Hindu temple was demolished or modified to create the mosque.
Hanuman Garhi Temple is a Hindu temple of Hanuman in Uttar Pradesh, India. Located in Ayodhya, it is one of the most important temples in the city along with other temples such as Ram Mandir and Nageshwar Nath. This shrine is under the charge of Bairagi Mahants of Ramanandi Sampradaya and Nirvani Akhara.
In Hinduism, the yatra (pilgrimage) to the tirthas has special significance for earning the punya needed to attain the moksha (salvation) by performing the darśana, the parikrama (circumambulation), the yajna, the Dhyana, the puja (worship), the prarthana, the dakshina, the seva, the bhandara, etc. These sacred places are usually located on the banks of sacred waters, such as sacred rivers or their tributaries, the kundas, the ghats, or the stepwells, or the temple tanks.
Mahavir Mandir is a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Hanuman, located in Patna, Bihar, India. Millions of pilgrims visit the temple every year. Acharya Kishore Kunal is the secretary of the Mahavir Mandir Temple Trust, Patna.
Keshava Parasaran is a lawyer from India. He was Advocate General of Tamil Nadu during the president's rule in 1976, Solicitor General of India under the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and Attorney General of India under Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi between 1983 and 1989 until the end of Rajiv's tenure. Parasaran was awarded the Padma Bhushan in the year 2003 and Padma Vibhushan in the year 2011. In June 2012, he received a presidential nomination to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's parliament, for a period of six years. He is a member of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra. In 2019 the Central Government appointed him to lead the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra. However later, Mahant Nritya Gopal Das was appointed to lead the trust. The trust oversees the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
Kishore Kunal is a former officer of the Indian Police Service from the state of Bihar, India. During his police career, he was appointed as the Officer on Special Duty (Ayodhya) by the prime minister V. P. Singh to mediate between the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Babri Masjid Action Committee on the Ayodhya dispute. He continued to serve in this position during the premierships of Chandra Sekhar and P. V. Narasimha Rao.
The Akhil Bharatiya Akhara ParishadABAP, one of the organizations of Hindu sants (saints) and sadhus (ascetics) in India. The ABAP is composed of 14 akharas, or organisations of Hindu sants and sadhus. Nirmohi Akhara and Shri Dattatreya Akhara are two of the prominent akharas which are part of it.
Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas 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 the Hindu deity Rama. The Nyas was formed by members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad.
The Ayodhya massacre describes the occasion when the Uttar Pradesh police opened fire at civilians because they were heading to demolish the Babri Masjid on two separate days, 30 October 1990 and 2 November 1990, in the aftermath of the Ram Rath Yatra. The civilians were religious volunteers, or kar sevaks, assembled near the Ram Janmabhoomi site at Ayodhya. The state government's official records report that at least 17 people were killed.
Krishna Janmasthan Temple Complex is a group of Hindu temples situated in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, India. There are three main temples inside the premises -- Keshavdevtemple which is dedicated to Krishna, Garbh Griha where Krishna is believed to be born in Dvapar Yuga and Bhagvata Bhavan where presiding deities are Radha Krishna.
The final judgement in the Ayodhya dispute was declared by the Supreme Court of India on 9 November 2019. The Supreme Court ordered the disputed land to be handed over to a trust to build the Ram Janmabhoomi temple. The court also ordered the government to give an alternative 5 acres of land in another place to the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board for the purpose of building a mosque as a replacement for the demolished Babri Masjid.
Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra is a trust set up for the construction and management of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya by the Government of India in February 2020. The trust is composed of 15 trustees.
The Ram Mandir is a partially constructed Hindu temple complex in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, India. Many Hindus believe that it is located at the site of Ram Janmabhoomi, the mythical birthplace of Rama, a principal deity of Hinduism. The temple was inaugurated on 22 January 2024 after a prana pratishtha (consecration) ceremony. On the first day of its opening, following the consecration, the temple received a rush of over half a million visitors, and after a month, the number of daily visitors was reported to be between 100,000 and 150,000.
Baba Lal Das was first ever Mahant of the idols of the deity Rama placed within the Babri Masjid complex in Ayodhya. He was appointed to his position by the Lucknow High Court in 1981. Lal Das was a fierce critic of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Vishva Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, and he criticized these groups in the 1992 documentary Ram ke Naam.
The Prana pratishtha (consecration) ceremony of the Ram Mandir was held on 22 January 2024, in a traditional sacred ceremony, wherein priests recited mantras invoking the God Rama. The Prana Pratishtha ceremony, that is considered to bring a presence of divinity, is an essential ritual before the inauguration of a Hindu temple. The ceremony involved the pran pratishtha of the primary temple deity, Ram Lalla, also known as Balak Ram, and subsequent opening of the temple for visitors.
Balak Ram, also known as Ram Lalla, is the primary murti (idol) of the Ram Mandir, a prominent Hindu temple located at Ram Janmabhoomi, the presumed birthplace of the Hindu deity Rama in Ayodhya, India. Balak Rama is housed in the sacred sanctum sanctorum of the Ram Mandir, a traditional Nagara style temple. The murti (idol) was consecrated in an elaborate Prana pratishtha ceremony on January 22, 2024.
Kanak Bhawan is a temple in Ram Janmabhoomi, Ayodhya, which is in the north-east of Ramkot. It is one of the most famous temples of Ayodhya. It is believed that this palace (temple) was gifted by Kaikeyi, immediately after the marriage of Rama with Sita and hence, it is their personal palace. According to the mythology, after the original Kanak Bhawan was damaged, it was rebuilt by Krishna himself in the Dvapar Yuga. It is believed that it was renovated by Vikramaditya in the medieval period. Later, it was renovated by Queen Vrishabhanu Kunwari which is still present today. The main idols installed in the sanctum sanctorum are of Rama and Sita.
