Ayodhya Panchkosi Parikrama

The route

What defines it

1. 01

   Panchkosi: about 15 km on Dev Uthani Ekadashi

2. 02

   Chaudah Kosi: about 42 km on Akshaya Navami

3. 03

   Chaurasi Kosi: the whole Awadh circle, Chaitra–Vaishakh

4. 04

   Begins and ends with a bath in the Saryu

5. 05

   Ram Mandir pran pratishtha 22 January 2024

01City of moksha

Ayodhya heads the well-known shloka of the seven moksha-giving cities: Ayodhya, Mathura, Maya, Kashi, Kanchi, Avantika and Dvaravati. It is the capital of the Ikshvakus, the city where Shri Rama was born and to which he returned to be crowned, and the Valmiki Ramayana opens its story with a description of its walls and gates on the Saryu. To walk round such a city is to walk round the deity. The parikramas are timed to Kartik, the holiest month for Vaishnavas, when lamps are lit along the river and the Deepotsav on the eve of Diwali has in recent years lit the ghats of Ram ki Paidi with lakhs of diyas.

02Three circles

The Chaudah Kosi parikrama, about 42 km, goes round the wider Ayodhya and Faizabad on Akshaya Navami, Kartik Shukla Navami; many walk it through the night. Two days later, on Dev Uthani Ekadashi, comes the Panchkosi, about 15 km round the old city, starting and ending with a bath in the Saryu at Naya Ghat or Ram ki Paidi and passing the temples of the town. The Chaurasi Kosi parikrama, much longer, circles the whole land of Awadh connected with Shri Rama and is walked by sadhus and village groups in Chaitra and Vaishakh. In 2025 the administration fixed the auspicious window for the Panchkosi from 4 a.m. on 1 November to 2:57 a.m. on 2 November.

03After the long case

For most of the last five centuries the parikramas went round a city whose central site was in dispute, from the mosque built in 1528–29 through the colonial courts to the Supreme Court. The Archaeological Survey’s excavation of 2003 reported a large structure beneath the mosque, and the Supreme Court’s unanimous judgment of 9 November 2019 gave the site for a temple; the Ram Mandir’s pran pratishtha was held on 22 January 2024. Kanak Bhawan, a stop on the route, was rebuilt in 1891 by Queen Vrishbhanu Kunwari of Orchha. The first Chaudah Kosi after the consecration, on 9–10 November 2024, drew more than ten lakh by one report and 30 lakh by another; no official count settles it.

In the texts

• Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda
• Ayodhya Mahatmya of the Skanda Purana

More in this family