The unconquerable land

Ayodhya a land which has grown to international importance, has its name come from the sanskrit root word yudh, meaning "fight" or "wage war" and it translates to either "not to be fought" or, less literally, "unconquerable." It may seem to anyone that it has grown to importance for its root origin (fight, wage war) rather than for its complete meaning (not to be fought). 

Most of us are aware of the history of events that took place at Ayodhya way back since 1992 when Babri masjid was demolished till the recent Allahabad HC verdict in 2010. Without touching any of the above known events there is a recent development reported in a news paper which i thought of sharing with my view point. 

There has always been a campaign to build a Rama's temple in Ayodhya by VHP, RSS and BJP. Chandrakant Sompura, Architect was entrusted with the designing and construction of the Rama's temple by VHP chief Ashok Singhal. The architecture of the temple designed by him has been well known to most of us. 

Parallel to the above campaign there has been an attempt to start a new campaign to build Rama's temple in Ayodhya which has been slow but surely taking shape. But this campaign is not started by RSS, VHP or BJP.    It is Swami Swaroopananda Saraswati, Shankaracharya of the Jyotipeeta (Badrikashram) and Dwarakapeeta (Gujarat) [two of the four centers of Advaita learning established by Sri Sankaracharya] who has taken this initiative.

He has been linked to politics and is perceived to have been a close ally of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and had close relations with all the three generations of Gandhi family. Sources said Swaroopanand's new plan has the unspoken support of the Congress leadership. The idea is to wrest the temple initiative from the saffron brigade and isolate BJP, VHP and the Sangh on this issue in the aftermath of the September 30 Allahabad high court order. 

Swami Swaroopanand has unveiled a new plan to build a temple dedicated to “Brahma Ram (Ram as God) as opposed to the adarsh (ideal) or purushottam Ram as advocated by VHP. The design for the new temple was unveiled at the conclave of shankaracharyas held at Sringeri earlier this year.

The latter essentially recognises a mortal or human form of Ram which the shankaracharya finds unacceptable.

“A temple in the name of adarsh Ram can be a tourist spot but not a place for worship. Only a temple consecrated to Ram in divine form as Brahma Ram will be acceptable to Hindus,” Swaroopanand told a group of mediapersons at his Kalindi Colony residence in Delhi.

The shankaracharya also pointed out that VHP's temple plan would never be realised due to the vaastu dosh (architectural fault) in its Ram temple design.He said the shilanyas held by VHP in November 1989 also suffered from vaastu dosh as it had been done for a Sinha dwar (main entrance to the shrine), far from the Ram Janmasthan (birthplace) and in the south direction, which was “inauspicious”.

Swaroopanand’s campaign is aimed at getting the temple built by the Akhil Bharatiya Ramalay Nirman Samiti. This would effectively nix the saffron brigade’s plans to get the temple constructed by the VHP-controlled Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas.

The new temple's design, proposed by Akhil Bharatiya Ramalay Nirman Samiti, is based on Cambodia's Angkor Vat Temple. The temple will be 350 ft high and have five gold plated spires built on top at a cost of Rs 100 crore. It will have a hall to accommodate 10,000 devotees at a time. There would be an extensive CCTV network that would help nine lakh devotees in the premises watch the prayers. There would be broadcast facilities for live telecast.

Photos of Cambodia's Angkor Vat Temple

Now the fight for Ayodhya has taken a new turn and it looks like the Congress is tacitly backing the new gambit. We will have to wait and watch if AYODHYA [not to be fought] will ever free itself from the fights which are happening at different planes.

Link to the actual news article published in DNA on Nov 2nd 2010 can be read here