A GOLDEN CHAPTER OF INDIAN CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION THAT MARKED THE “ BOOMI PUJAN ” OF RAM TEMPLE A historic day that was marked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday,05 August ’2020 for the Bhumi Pujan of Ram Temple at Ayodha in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The foundation stone laying ceremony marked the beginning of the construction of Ram Temple after a lengthy legal battle that culminated in favour of the construction of the temple at the disputed site which housed Babri Mosque before it was demolished by kar sevaks in 1992. Just like 15 August 1947 , is commemorated as the day of sacrifice and the will to be free displayed by many generations of Indians during the Independence struggle, the start of the Ram Temple construction on August 5, 2020 was a “symbol of penance, sacrifice and resolve” of many generations that struggled for it for over five centuries. Lord Ram is considered as the thread of India’s unity in diversity and that Mahatma Gandhi had dreamt of a Ram Rajya through the values of Lord Ram. The master architects who are building the Ram Temple in Ayodhya are the Sompura family from Palitana town in Gujarat , who have built numerous grand temples around the country and elsewhere, including the grand Somnath Temple that was opened in 1951, the Akshardham temples, and the Krishna Janmasthan in Mathura. FROM SOMNATH TO AYODHYA, A FAMILY OF TEMPLE BUILDERS The building of the temple is led by Chandrakant Sompura, 77, had started work on the temple to Ram Lalla in Ayodhya 30 years ago, after he first visited the site with then Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) president Ashok Singhal. Industrialist Ghanshyamdas Birla asked him if he would take up the Ram Mandir project, and introduced him to Singhal. Sompura had worked on several of the Birla 10 • HOLLYWOOD WEEKLY
temples then. This was the longest time a project commissioned to the Sompuras has taken for the ground-breaking, says the patriarch, whose family has designed around 200 temples in India and abroad. Usually the bhoomi pujan happen within 2-3 years. The Sompura, watched Prime Minister Narendra Modi perform the shilanyas of the temple live, on television because of his age and the coronavirus pandemic. But his son, Ashish, 49, who has made the site plan of the Ram Janmabhoomi temple, was in Ayodhya to work out the details with Larsen & Toubro, the company that has been awarded the contract to build the temple. The art of temple building came to Ashish largely from his father and great grandfather Prabhashankar, who built the Somnath Temple in Prabhas Patan on the Gujarat coast that was inaugurated by the first President of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad, in 1951. Prabhashankar, who was later honoured with the Padma Shri, lost his son, Balwantrai, who was then 51, in an accident while Balwantrai was returning from a renovation project of the Badrinath temple. But for the family, the Somnath temple is the closest to their heart. The Sompuras believe that their ancestors were taught the art of temple building by the divine architect Vishwakarma himself. The Sompuras, who come from Palitana town of Bhavnagar, consider themselves to be ‘residents of the moon’ (Som = moon and pura= city). Their ancestor Ramji built the Jain temple complex on the Shetrunjay hills of Palitana, commissioned to him by a sugar merchant from Bombay who named the main dwar ‘Ram pol’ after him. He did not go to any formal school of architecture, having learnt it from his grandfather and father and the shastras and now his sons and others who joined in the temple project are, however, trained engineers or architects.
