The ‘pran pratishtha’ or consecration of the idol of Lord Ram at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya took place on Monday, amid chanting of hymns and performance of rituals, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other dignitaries in attendance. Mr. Modi, who participated in the ceremony, termed it a historic day, stating that it was akin to a “nation rising by breaking the mentality of slavery, a nation drawing courage from every affliction of the past, creating a new history in this manner.”
In Pictures | Ram temple consecration ceremony in Ayodhya
Mr. Modi, one of the yajmans (empowered to conduct the ritual) of the ceremony, took the ‘sankalp’ for the pran pratishtha, and later walked inside the sanctum sanctorum of the temple with a silver ‘chattar’ placed on a red folded sheet of cloth for rituals. The Ramjanmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, that was formed for the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, had also nominated 16 other people from across the country and from different communities as yajmans for the ceremony. They included Domraja of Kashi, Anil Chaudhary, the keeper of the flame at Manikarnika Ghat in Varanasi, Mahadev Gaikwad, considered the representative of the 315 nomadic and 198 denotified tribes, and Anil Mishra and his wife Usha Mishra, termed the “pradhan yajman” of the consecration rituals.
