13965-xgocakiusb-1502420585, Ram Janmabhoomi, Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh
13965-xgocakiusb-1502420585, Ram Janmabhoomi, Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh

Ram Janmabhoomi, Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh

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Deity:Lord Rama
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Ram Janmabhoomi is the name given to the site that many Hindus believe to be the birthplace of Rama, the 7th 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”. A section of Hindus claim that the exact site of Rama’s birthplace is where the Babri Masjidonce stood in the present-day Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. According to this theory, the Mughals demolished a Hindu shrine that marked the spot, and constructed a mosque in its place. People opposed to this theory state that such claims arose only in the 18th century, and that there is no evidence for the spot being the birthplace of Rama.

The political, historical and socio-religious debate over the history and location of the Babri Mosque, and whether a previous temple was demolished or modified to create it, is known as the Ayodhya dispute.

In 1992, the demolition of Babri Masjid by Hindu nationalists triggered widespread Hindu-Muslim violence. Since then, the archaeological excavations have indicated the presence of a temple beneath the mosque rubble.Several other sites, including places in other parts of India, Afghanistan, and Nepal, have been proposed as birthplaces of Rama.

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Legend / Local stories

The Ramayana, a Hindu epic whose earliest portions date back to 1st millennium BCE, states that the capital of Rama was Ayodhya.According to the local Hindu belief, the site of the now-demolished Babri Mosque in Ayodhya is the exact birthplace of Rama. The Babri mosque is believed to have been constructed during 1528-29 by a certain ‘Mir Baqi’ (possibly Baqi Tashqandi), who was a commander of the Mughalemperor Babur (r. 1526–1530).However, the historical evidence for these beliefs is scant.

In 1611, an English traveller William Finch visited Ayodhya and recorded the “ruins of the Ranichand castle and houses”. He made no mention of a mosque. In 1634, Thomas Herbert described a “pretty old castle of Ranichand [Ramachand]” which he described as an antique monument that was “especially memorable”. However, by 1672, the appearance of a mosque at the site can be inferred because Lal Das’s Awadh-Vilasa describes the location of birthplace without mentioning a temple or “castle”. In 1717, the Moghul Rajput noble Jai Singh IIpurchased land surrounding the site and his documents show a mosque.The Jesuit missionary Joseph Tiefenthaler, who visited the site between 1766-1771, wrote that either Aurangazeb (r. 1658–1707) or Babur had demolished the Ramkot fortress, including the house that was considered as the birthplace of Rama by Hindus. He further stated that a mosque was constructed in its place, but the Hindus continued to offer prayers at a mud platform that marked the birthplace of Rama.[8] In 1810, Francis Buchanan visited the site, and stated that the structure destroyed was a temple dedicated to Rama, not a house. Many subsequent sources state that the mosque was constructed after demolishing a temple.

Police officer and writer Kishore Kunal states that all the claimed inscriptions on the Babri mosque were fake. They were affixed sometime around 1813 (almost 285 years after the supposed construction of the mosque in 1528 AD), and repeatedly replaced.

Before the 1940s, the Babri Masjid was called Masjid-i-Janmasthan (“mosque of the birthplace”), including in the official documents such as revenue records. Shykh Muhammad Azamat Ali Kakorawi Nami (1811–1893) wrote: “the Babari mosque was built up in 923(?) A.H. under the patronage of Sayyid Musa Ashiqan in the Janmasthan temple in Faizabad-Avadh, which was a great place of (worship) and capital of Rama’s father”

H.R. Neville, the editor of the Faizabad District Gazetteer (1870), wrote that the Janmasthan temple “was destroyed by Babur and replaced by a mosque.” He also wrote “The Janmasthan was in Ramkot and marked the birthplace of Rama. In 1528 A.D. Babur came to Ayodhya and halted here for a week. He destroyed the ancient temple and on its site built a mosque, still known as Babur’s mosque. The materials of the old structure [i.e., the temple] were largely employed, and many of the columns were in good preservation.

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