English
New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Monday said the Ram temple consecration ceremony here has come after a wait of 500 years and the entire country has become “Ram maye”. Addressing a gathering after the ceremony, the chief minister said, “It is an emotional moment for all of us and it has come after a 500-year wait.” “The whole nation has become Ram maye (immersed in the devotion of Lord Ram). It seems that we have arrived in ‘Treta Yug’,” Adityanath added.
The new Ram Lalla idol was consecrated at the Ayodhya temple on Monday, an event led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and watched by lakhs of people on television at their homes and in temples across the country. Army helicopters showered flower petals on the newly constructed Janmabhoomi temple as the ‘pran pratishtha’ ceremony took place – a seminal occasion in India’s political and religious history.
“The extraordinary moment of the consecration of Shri Ram Lalla’s life in Ayodhya Dham is going to leave everyone emotional. It is my great pleasure to be a part of this divine programme. Hail Siya Ram!” Modi tweeted. At the end of ceremony, Modi prostrated himself before the idol. Modi took part in the ‘pran pratishtha’ rituals in the presence of Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.
From the sanctum sanctorum, Modi next headed for another location to address a gathering of about 8,000, which included seers, people linked to Ram Janmabhoomi movement and celebrities from fields like entertainment, sports and industry. He was also slated to visit the Kuber Tila, and interact with workers associated with the construction of temple. Senior BJP leaders including party chief J P Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah watched the live streaming of the ceremony.
Top Opposition leaders skipped the ceremony. But Himachal Pradesh minister Vikramaditya Singh, who is the son of state Congress chief Pratibha Singh, arrived at the venue. Several BJP-run states had declared the day a holiday to allow people to watch the ceremony on tv and also take part in events at neighbourhood temple.
Fifty traditional musical instruments from across the country were part of a devotional “Mangal Dhwani” that resonated during the consecration ceremony. Orchestrated by Ayodhya’s celebrated poet Yatindra Mishra, the grand musical rendition was supported by New Delhi’s Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi.
The instruments included pakhawaj, flute and dholak from Uttar Pradesh, veena from Karnataka, algoja from Punjab, sundari from Maharashtra, mardala from Odisha, santoor from Madhya Pradesh, pung from Manipur, nagada and kali from Assam and tambura from Chhattisgarh.
The run-up to the consecration ceremony, which takes place just months before the Lok Sabha elections, was marked by sparring between the ruling BJP and the Opposition. The Opposition called it an RSS-BJP event. The run-up to the temple’s inauguration – only the first phase of the construction is over at this stage – also saw much religious fervor. Devotees arrived from several parts of the country to the temple town to be part of the occasion, while being aware that they could not attend the main ceremony.
