Understanding the Importance of ‘Ram Temple’ Through Expanse of Ramayana

Almost five centuries of struggle for the construction of Sri Ram temple at Ayodhya is aimed at creating something that is manifestation of eternally inspirational Bharat’s civilisational values. TH Griffith, who translated Valmiki’s Ramayana, ‘The Ramayan of Válmíki’ asks, “How could an epic so dear in India to the memory of the people, so deeply rooted for many centuries in the minds of all, so propagated and diffused through all the dialects and languages of those regions, which had become the source of many dramas, which are still represented in India, which is itself represented with such magnificence year after year and to such crowds of people in the neighbourhood of Ayodhya, a poem which at its very birth was welcomed with such fervour as the legend relates, that the recitation of it by the first wandering rhapsodists, has consecrated and made famous all the places visited by them, and where Rama made a longer or shorter stay, how I ask, could such an epic have been purely allegorical?”. Madhava Kandali’s Saptakanda Ramayana is in Assamese, Krittibas Ojha’s Krittivasi Ramayan also known as Shri Ram Panchali is written in Bengali, Sarala Das’ Vilanka Ramayana and Balarama Dasa’s Dandi Ramayana also known as the Jagamohan Ramayana written in 16th century in Odia language.In Marathi it was Sant Eknath’s Bhavarth Ramayan who lived in Paithan, a great centre of learning and religion.Tulsidas’ Ramcharitamanas in Awadhi An English Indologist Ralph Thomas Hotchkin Griffith, among the first Europeans to translate the Vedas into English said the Ramcharitmanas was more honoured than the bible is by the corresponding classes in England. G.A.Grierson writing about the literary magnificence says “the fact of its universal acceptance by all classes from Bhagalpur to Punjab and from the Himalaya to the Narmada, is surely worthy of note…to the vast majority of people of Hindustan,learned and unlearned alike,their sole norm of conduct is the so-called Tulsi-krit -Ramayan.” Sri Ram’s character and life has been eulogized in other Indian Languages and dialects also which speaks of magnitude and the expanse of reverence for Sri Ram all over the nation.