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Teakwood from Maharashtra’s Chandrapur being sent to Ayodhya for Ram temple
The consignment has about 1,855 cubic feet of teakwood, which will be used to build the main entrance of the temple, the door of the sanctum sanctorum and other doors in the main temple structure
LUCKNOW A shobha yatra, puja and performance by hundreds of artistes marked the beginning of the journey of a consignment of high-quality teakwood meant for the Ayodhya Ram temple from Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district to UP’s temple town on Wednesday.
The consignment has about 1,855 cubic feet of teakwood, which will be used to build the main entrance of the temple, the door of the sanctum sanctorum and other doors in the main temple structure, said Sudhir Mungantiwar, Maharashtra minister for forests, cultural affairs and fisheries. The consignment was taken on a grand procession amid a performance by 1,946 artistes.
The highly durable wood has been sourced from the area, which is a part of the Dandakaranya mentioned in the epic Ramayan, he added. It is believed that Lord Ram’s paternal grandmother Indumati (mother of King Dashrath, his father) belonged to the Vidarbha region.
“This place has a connect with Lord Ram,” said UP forest minister Arun Saxena, who visited Chandrapur to participate in the rituals.
As the shobha yatra began, Sudhir Mungantiwar tweeted pictures of the event.
“The temple trust is willing to pay, but the Maharashtra government is willing to contribute the wood for the temple,” said Saxena. The UP forest minister was present among others at the series of ceremonies organised in Maharashtra before the consignment of teakwood was dispatched.
The temple construction committee had sought the opinion of several experts, including those at the Forest Research Institute in Dehradun – over best quality of wood that could be obtained for the construction of the temple – and the answer was Chandrapur. Wood from Chandrapur had also been also in the construction of Central Vista.
“Following a request from Champat Rai, general secretary of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, we decided to send high quality teakwood. It is a great honour for us that we could send teakwood for Lord Ram’s temple in Ayodhya,” said Mungantiwar.
A ‘Kasth Pujan’ was conducted at Ballarpur and then a shobha yatra was taken out before the wood stock was dispatched from Maharashtra.
The construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya is likely to be completed months before the deadline, an office-bearer of the Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust had said last week. “We are confident that the temple will be completed three months before the due date. So, we have advanced the deadline from December 2023 to September 2023. Now, the temple will get its final shape in September,” said Prakash Gupta, in-charge of the trust’s office at Ram Janmabhoomi.
