The Kaifiyat Express looks in dire need of spit and polish. But if you are a pilgrim bound for Ayodhya from Delhi, it’s the most convenient train there.
On reaching you head towards the ghat for the ritual bath in the Sarayu or Ghaghra river, but you feel only a true Ram bhakt would venture here. No fancy or even decent hotels. No tourist-friendly signage or restaurants. If anything, Ayodhya’s numerous temples too are understated. Definitely not in the league of the Akshardhams or Tirupatis. “Many temples have endowments or muafi lands or revenue-free villages,” says Mr R.C. Gaur, author of Ram in Stone Sculpture, but little known history exists.
The Ayodhya Shodh Sansthan, a Research Institute, established in 1985, encourages scholarship on Ayodhya. At the Sansthan’s headquarters, Tulsi Smarak Bhavan, the spirit of Ram lalla is kept alive through the enactment of Ram lila year round. My visit coincides with an enthusiastic troupe from Barabanki. Against gaudily painted backdrops of ocean, sky, forest, palace, Sita’s kidnapping by Ravana is played out. As many as twenty-four Ramlila troupes participate with 15-16 day slots to propagate the Ramayana.
Eager spectators are seated on a dhurrie, while a mini orchestra plays on the manjira, tabla and harmonium while lustily singing Tulsidas’s chaupais, a tradition attributed to Baba Manik Dasji. Often a kathavachak is the interlocutor, recounts writer Sharda Dubey who has documented this tradition. With an aarti to the jhanki and a vandana, the show begins. Six hundred Ramlila artistes have benefitted, says a spokesperson of the Institute, besides local businesses like restaurants, halwai shops, flower-sellers, barbers, dharamshalas etc.
It is Rama’s town, and it feels as if he were still alive. Droves of people from distant provinces of Andhra, Karnataka, Assam etc arrive daily to Ayodhya. These are mostly lower middle-class people. Inconveniences do not deter them, nor the paramilitary and police forces that guard the Ram Janam Bhumi Sthan.
Though Ayodhya’s history is well documented in Valmiki’s Ramayana, the first three Vedas do not mention it. The Atharvaveda mentions Ayodhya and describes the city as having being built by the Gods and being as prosperous as paradise itself. In the mythical age of the Mahabharata, Ayodhya is called Punyalakshmana and the Ikshvaku kings of Suryavanshi descent make up Lord Rama’s lineage. His kingdom of Kosala with its capital of Ayodhya lay by the sacred river Saryu, till his twin son Kush moved it further to Kushthali, near the Vindhyas and Ayodhya lost its importance.
According to tradition the credit of restoring Ayodhya goes to Vikramaditya of Ujjain, usually identified as Chadragupta II (379-413 AD) but from the 7th century AD onwards again, for long periods it was deserted till it fell into the hands of the Delhi Sultans. It is from Jahangir’s reign that we have the first description of Ayodhya by a European visitor William Finch (1608-16011 AD), writes scholar Hans Bakker. Later it lent its name to Avadh adopted by the latter day Nawabs.
Interestingly, this whole Sarayu basin is the cradle of all religious histories, be it Jain, Buddhist and Muslim. The Buddha followed the footsteps of Rama and stayed at nearby Sravasti. The Sarayu basin mounds could unearth more stupas and monasteries, but we would need an international project to actualise this whole cradle of civilisation, says an ASI functionary.
A Historical Sketch of Faizabad tehsil (P. Carnegy, 1870) states in 1902 a local committee erected stone pillars marking the sacred spots. But the four most frequented tirthas apart from Saryu river remain the Kanakbhavana temple built by the Rani of Tikamgarh/Orcha State (MP) and thought to be the terrestrial representation of Sita’s divine palace; Hanumangarhi, the temple devoted to Hanuman; the Ram Janam Bhumi Nyas and Bara Sthan/Dushrath Mahal from early times. Other interesting temples are Mani Parvat Temple and Mani Ram Das ki Chavani.
Of the dharamshalas, the Janaki Mahal Trust at Naya Ghat (good food), the Birla dharamshala at the old bus station, and the Manas Bhavan Trust at Ram Ghat are the most sought after, where an AC or non-AC room can be had at decent rates. We lodge in the 2-star Ram Shyam Hotel where rooms are basic, but the north Indian cuisine is deliciously cooked in desi ghee.
The 18th century palace of the erstwhile Raja Ayodhya built in Indo-Saracenic style marks one of the secular ‘heritage spots’. But aside from the palace not much effort has been made to restore or conserve old buildings. The royalty is originally of Brahmin origin from Darbangha, Bihar. Speaking of migrations, the first Indo-Korean diplomatic relations are said to have been established by a princess of Ayodhya who travelled to far Korea two thousand years ago. She is said to have taken the ancient Chinese Tea and Horse Route.
But clearly Ayodhya today is yet another UP town in decay. Locals say the ex-culture minister Jagmohan had tried to make it a heritage city but failed to get past the red-tape. However Tulsi Smarak Bhavan keeps the flag flying with seminars, and a collection of rare books. Currently it tries to build up a Ramayana-centric craft collection of flying Hanumans from Varanasi, the Ramayana in Kalamkari from Andhra, block-printed textiles from the Ram-bhakt Bilaspur-Mahanadi tribal belt and so on. A photograph of Nehru at the Ramlila celebrations also catches the eye.
On stage the legend continues. As the curtain drops on the Barabanki actors, the crowd of people slip out in silence, awaiting the performance the next day. They speculate, who will rescue Sita, how will Lord Hanuman make the journey? For them the Ram Mandir dispute is marginal, but not the just and righteous rule of Rama rajya that Mahatma Gandhi and his followers, Pt Nehru and Patel strove for. In this crime-infested state of UP, this audience still await it.

The writer is an author, cultural historian and a travel enthusiast