Pran pratishtha of Shri Ram Lalla at Ayodhya

01Building the temple

After the Supreme Court’s verdict of 2019, the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra trust took up the design long prepared by Chandrakant Sompura in the Nagara style. The temple is built of pink sandstone from Bansi Paharpur in Rajasthan, without steel, on a foundation of compacted fill and granite. Money came from crores of households through a nationwide collection drive in 2021.

02The murti and the rite

The new murti, a standing five-year-old Ram Lalla about 51 inches tall, was carved in black stone by the sculptor Arun Yogiraj of Mysuru. The pran pratishtha rites, led by priests from Kashi under Pandit Lakshmikant Dixit, ran for a week. On 22 January, in the abhijit muhurta at midday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sat as the chief yajaman. The old murti of Ram Lalla, worshipped since 1949 and in a tent after 1992, was placed in the same garbhagriha.

03After

The temple opened to the public the next morning, and lakhs came for darshan in the first days. Work on the upper floors, the shikhara and the surrounding shrines went on through 2024 and 2025. For many Hindus the day closed the account that Somnath had opened in 1951: a site of loss, given back by law, and rebuilt by the gifts of ordinary people.