Ayodhya

Ayodhya - birth place of lord Ram..

Ayodhya  is a city situated on the banks of holy river saryu in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is the administrative headquarters of the Faizabad district as well as the Faizabad division of Uttar Pradesh, India. Ayodhya city is administered by the Ayodhya Municipal Corporation, the governing civic body of the city.

Ayodhya, also known as Saketa, is an ancient city of India, the birthplace of Rama and setting of the great epic Ramayana. Ayodhya was once the capital of the ancient Kosala Kingdom. It has an average elevation of 93 meters (305 feet). Owing to the belief as the birthplace of Rama, Ayodhya (Awadhpuri) has been regarded as first one of the seven most important pilgrimag sites (Mokshdayini Sapt Puris) for Hindus.

The early Buddhist and Jain canonical texts mention that the religious leaders Gautama Buddha and Mahavira visited and lived in the city. The Jain texts also describe it as the birthplace of five tirthankaras namely, Rishabhanatha, Ajitanatha, Abhinandananatha, Sumatinath and Anantnath and associate it with the legendary Bharata Chakravarti From the Gupta period onwards, several sources mention Ayodhya and Saketa as the name of the same city.

Owing to the belief as the birthplace of Ram, Ayodhya has been regarded as one of the seven most important pilgrimage sites for Hindus. It is believed that a temple stood at the supposed birth spot of Rama which was demolished by the orders of the Mughal emperor Babur and a mosque erected in its place.[7] In 1992, the dispute over the spot led to the demolition of the mosque by Hindu mobs, who aimed to rebuild a grand temple of Rama at the site. A five-judge full bench of the Supreme Court heard the title cases from August to October 2019 and ruled that the land belonged to the government per tax records, and ordered it to be handed over to a trust to build a Hindu temple. It also ordered the government to give an alternative 5 acres (2.0 ha) of land to the Uttar Prades. Sunni Central Waqf Board to build a mosque in lieu of the demolished Babri mosque. The construction of Ram Mandir commenced in August 2020.