Ayodhya

(“unassailable”) Sacred city (tirtha) on
the Sarayu River, in the Faizabad district of the state of Uttar Pradesh, and
one of India’s seven sacred cities.
Ayodhya is famous as the setting for
much of the Ramayana, the later of
the two great Hindu epics, whose principal character is the god Rama. In the
Ramayana, Ayodhya is the capital city
of Rama’s father, King Dasharatha, the
birthplace and childhood home of
Rama and his brothers, and the city to
which Rama returns in triumph after
his exile is over.
Although historians have raised
doubts about the Ramayana’s historical veracity and the reality of the
events described there, Rama’s devotees (bhakta) entertain no such
doubts. For them the cult of Rama is
deeply entrenched in Ayodhya, and
various places in the city are associated
with events in the epic that are
believed to have actually occurred.
In most cases this has had no ill
effects, with the exception of the Ram
Janam Bhumi, the site identified as
Rama’s birthplace. Until 1992, this site
was occupied by the Babri Masjid, a
Muslim mosque supposedly built after
the existing temple was demolished.
On December 6 of that year, the
mosque was destroyed by teams of
activists from the Vishva Hindu
Parishad, who tore it down in just over
six hours. The destruction sparked
Hindu-Muslim riots all over India, in
which thousands of people were killed.
For further information on Ayodhya,
see Hans Bakker, Ayodhya, 1986; Peter
van der Veer, Gods on Earth, 1988;
Sarvepalli Gopal, Anatomy of a
Confrontation, 1991; and Christophe
Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist
Movement in India, 1996.
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