Ayodhya

Ayodhya or Ajodhya, former town, Uttar Pradesh state, N India, on the Ghaghara River. It is a joint municipality with Faizabad. Ayodhya was the capital of the kingdom of Kosala (7th cent. B.C.). Long associated with Hindu legend of Rama and his father Dasharatha (see Ramayana), the town is a center of pilgrimage and is one of the seven sites sacred to Hindus. In the late 1980s it became the center of Muslim-Hindu tensions, and in 1992 fundamentalist Hindus pulled down the 16th-century Babri mosque that they alleged stood on the site of Rama's birthplace. The site of the razed mosque remains a source of contention; in 2003 the Archaeological Survey of India reported that remains of a structure with features like those of Hindu temple are underneath the mosque. A report on the 1992 razing by former Indian Supreme Court Justice M. S. Liberhan accused many prominent Hindu nationalists of planning, supporting, or failing to prevent the attack, and named A. B. Vajpayee and other Bharatiya Janata party leaders as being among those who were in some way culpable. Ayodhya was formerly called Oudh.

or Oudh

Town (pop., 2001: 49,417), Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. Lying on the banks of the Ghaghara River just east of Faizabad, of which it is now a suburb, Ayodhya in ancient times was one of India's greatest cities; today, it is one of the seven holy cities of Hinduism. It was the capital of Kosala, as described in the Ramayana. It became an important Buddhist centre in Buddhism's early years (6th–4th century BC), and the Buddha is said to have lived there. In the 16th century the Mughal emperor Babur built a mosque on a site traditionally associated with an ancient Hindu temple marking the birthplace of the god Rama. The storming of the mosque by Hindus in 1990, amid religious tensions, was followed by riots, and the ensuing crisis brought down the government. In 1992 the mosque was demolished by Hindu fundamentalists, and hundreds of people died in the rioting that subsequently swept through India.

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Ayodhya (अयोध्या, IAST Ayodhyā) is an ancient city of India, the old capital of Awadh, in the Faizabad district of Uttar Pradesh. Ayodhya is described as the birth place of Hindu god Shri Ram. This Hindu holy city is described as early as in the Hindu Epics. During the time of Gautama Buddha the city was called Ayojjhā (Pali). Under the British Raj the city and the administrative area around it was called Oudh. It is on the right bank of the river Sarayu, 555 km east of New Delhi. The word ayodhya is Sanskrit for "not to be warred against". Some Puranas like the Brahmanda Purana (4/40/91) consider Ayodhya as one of the six holiest cities in Hinduism.

In the first few centuries of the Common Era it was called Śāketa. Śāketa, or 沙奇 (Pinyin: Shāqí) was conquered by the great Kushan / Yuezhi Emperor Kanishka c. 127 CE, who made it the administrative centre of his eastern territories. The name occurs again in Faxian as 沙祗 (Pinyin: Shāzhī) in the early fifth century. It is not clear when the name changed, but by the time of the visit of the Chinese pilgrim monk, Xuanzang, c. 636 CE, it was known as Ayodhya.

Legacy and importance

Ayodhya was one of the most ancient, largest and most magnificent of Indian cities. According to the Hindu mythology, it is said to have covered an area of 250 km² (96 square miles), and was the capital of the Hindu kingdom of Kosala (Kaushal), the court of the great king Dasaratha, the 63rd monarch of the Solar line. The opening chapters of the Ramayana recount the magnificence of the city, the glories of the monarch and the virtues, wealth and loyalty of his people. Dasaratha was the father of Rama, the Seventh Avatar of the Vishnu. Many Hindus believe the birthplace of Rama to be in Ayodhya at the place called Ram Janmabhoomi, the site of the demolished Babri Mosque.

Ayodhya is also the birth place of five Tirthankars, including the first Tirthankar of Jainism, Shri Rishabh Dev. He is known as the father of Jain religion. The city is also important in the history and heritage of Buddhism in India, with several Buddhist temples, monuments and centers of learning having been established here during the age of the Mauryan Empire and the Gupta Dynasty. Ayodhya reached its glorious peak as known to history during the reign of the Guptas over India.

Bhagwan Swaminarayan, founder of the Swaminarayan Sect of Hinduism lived here during his childhood years. It was from Ayodhya that Bhagwan Swaminarayan started his seven year journey across India as Neelkanth.

Tulsidas is said to have begun the writing of his famous Ramayana poem Shri Ramacharitamanas in Ayodhya in 1574 CE. Several Tamil Alwar mention the city of Ayodhya. Ayodhya is also said to be the birthplace of Bhahubali, Brahmi, Sundari, King Dasaratha, Acharya Padaliptasurisvarji, King Harishchandra, Shri Rama, Achalbhrata, and the ninth Gandhara of Mahavir Swami.

The Atharva Veda called Ayodhya "a city built by gods and being as prosperous as paradise itself".

Ayodhya was the victim of pillage and sacking during the Ghaznavi raids and Ghori invasions. Some Hindu temples were allegedly looted or destroyed. Some believe that the Babri Mosque was constructed on the remains of a temple, but this claim remains very controversial. With Muslim rulers established around the city under Mohammed of Ghor, it lost its strategic and economic importance to Lucknow and Kanpur.

Ayodhya today is a small, rustic city with ancient Hindu architecture predominating, and with some Mughal influence. Its population is mostly Hindu with a minority of Muslims, Jains and Buddhists. However, its history and heritage hold an unequivocal importance for Hindus.

The Thai kingdom and city of Ayutthaya were named for Ayodhya, reflecting the common Southeast Asian practice of adopting place names from Hindu kingdoms.

According to an 11th century Korean chronicle the Samguk Yusa, the wife of King Suro of the ancient Korean kingdom of Geumgwan Gaya was a princess who travelled by boat from a faraway land called Ayuta to Korea in 48 CE. It is commonly thought that Ayodhya is the foreign land referred to in the Korean chronicles, but some scholars believe that the foreign land may have been Ayutthaya of Thailand. The Koreans know the princess as Heo Hwang-ok, who was the first queen of Geumgwan Gaya and is considered an ancestor by several Korean lineages.

Geography

Ayodhya is located at . It has an average elevation of 93 metres (305 feet).Ayodhya is situated on the bank of the river Sarayu in Uttar Pradesh(northern India).

Demographics

As of the 2001 India census, Ayodhya had a population of 49,593. Males constitute 59% of the population and females 41%. Ayodhya has an average literacy rate of 65%, higher than the national average of 59.5%; with 66% of the males and 34% of females literate. 12% of the population is under 6 years of age.

Ayodhya debate

Ayodhya is also the centre of the Ayodhya debate concerning the Ram Janmabhoomi temple and the Babri Mosque. Babar, the founder of the Mughal dynasty, constructed a mosque called Babri Mosque. With an efforts to revive self-respect for Hindus, the Hindu nationalists destroyed the disputed structure in 1992. A temple devoted to Lord Rama is said to have existed prior to the mosque's construction. A title suit on the disputed site is currently pending in the Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court and its judgment is expected shortly.

Terrorist attack

On 5 July 2005, five terrorists attacked the site of the makeshift Ramlalla temple, in Ayodhya. All five were shot down in the ensuing gunfight with the security forces guarding the area, and one civilian died in the bomb blast triggered by the terrorists while they attempted to breach the cordon wall. The claim of police that the militants came from Pakistan has been contested by human rights activists.

See also

• Ramayana
• Bhagwan Swaminarayan
• Hou Hanshu
• Ram Janmabhoomi
• Babri Mosque
• Hanumangarhi

References

• Legge, James (1886): A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms: Being an account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399-414) in search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline. Oxford, Clarendon Press. Reprint: New York, Paragon Book Reprint Corp. 1965.
• Thomas, F. W. (1944): “Sandanes, Nahapāna, Caṣṭana and Kaniṣka : Tung-li P’an-ch’i and Chinese Turkestan.” New Indian Antiquary VII. 1944, p. 90.
• Watters, Thomas (1904-1905): On Yuan Chwang’s Travels in India. Thomas Watters. London. Royal Asiatic Society. Reprint: Delhi. Mushiram Manoharlal. 1973.

External links

• Sri Ramar Temple, Ayodhya
• Ayodhya Directory
• Ayodhya at Jainheritagecentres.com.
• Ayojjhaa in the Buddhist Dictionary of Pali Proper Names.
• Pilgrim Centers Of India