Ayodhya

Ayodhya, on the south bank of the Sarayu river in Uttar Pradesh, is the birthplace of Lord Rama — the seventh avatar of Vishnu — and the first of the Sapta Puri, the seven cities whose very soil is believed to grant moksha. The city is simultaneously the capital of the Solar Dynasty kings described in the Ramayana and a living pilgrimage city whose sacred life has been unbroken for millennia.

The Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir, consecrated in January 2024 on the site long held sacred as Rama's birthplace, is the city's defining new structure — a vast sandstone temple in the Nagara style, with a spire rising 70 metres from the elevated platform, visible across the plains. The temple's scale and craft represent one of the most ambitious acts of temple construction in modern India. Beyond the Janmabhoomi, Ayodhya's sacred landscape is dense: the 84-kos parikrama (a 275-km circumambulation of the entire sacred district on foot) passes through villages, forests, and smaller shrines; the Sarayu ghats at Ram ki Paidi illuminate nightly with aarti; Hanuman Garhi's hilltop Hanuman shrine is traditionally visited before the Janmabhoomi itself.

Rama, born at Ayodhya to King Dasharatha and Queen Kaushalya, is the seventh avatar of Vishnu — the embodiment of dharma, truth, and ideal kingship. The Valmiki Ramayana opens with Ayodhya described as a city of incomparable beauty and prosperity, founded by Manu, progenitor of humanity. Ayodhya means 'that which cannot be conquered.' After his exile, the war with Ravana, and the rescue of Sita, Rama returned here — the Diwali festival celebrates that return, and the city's Diwali is the most spectacular in India.