The History of Ayodhya

The name Ayodhya comes from the Sanskrit root yudh: “to fight” or “wage war”: combined with the negating prefix a-. It translates to that which cannot be fought, or more freely, “the unconquerable city.” The city has carried this defiant name for at least two and a half thousand years.

The Vedic and Buddhist eras

In the time of Gautama Buddha the city was called Ayojjhā in Pali and Ayodhya in Sanskrit. Within a few centuries of the Common Era it had taken on a second name: Saketa: by which it was known across north India.

Saketa was conquered in 127 CE by the Kushan emperor Kanishka, who made it the administrative centre of his eastern dominions. The 5th-century Chinese pilgrim Faxian still recorded the name Saketa. By the time the Tang-dynasty monk Xuanzang arrived in 636 CE, the city had reverted to its older name, Ayodhya: and so it has remained.

Buddhist monasteries, stupas, and centres of learning flourished here under the Mauryan Empire and again under the Gupta dynasty, when Ayodhya reached its historical zenith. The city was a substantial trade centre as early as 600 BCE, and tradition holds that the Buddha himself visited Ayodhya on several occasions.

A city sacred to many traditions

Ayodhya is not exclusively a Hindu city. Five Jain Tirthankaras were born here, including the first, Shri Rishabhadeva: the founder of the Jain religion. Jain texts also record visits by Mahavira, the twenty-fourth and last Tirthankara.

In modern times, Bhagwan Swaminarayan, founder of the Swaminarayan sampradaya, lived in Ayodhya during his childhood. It was from this city that the young saint, then known as Neelkanth, began his seven-year pilgrimage across India.

Under Muslim rule and the British

Under the Mughal Empire, Ayodhya was administered as part of the province of Awadh (Oudh). Its old strategic and economic primacy gradually passed to Lucknow and Kanpur. The famous Hanuman Garhi temple was constructed by a later Nawab of Awadh, an unusual instance of a Muslim ruler patronising a Hindu shrine.

Saadat Ali Khan, an early Nawab of Awadh, granted the Riyasat (estate) of Ayodhya to the Brahmin soldier Dwijdeo Mishra of the Kashyapa gotra as reward for suppressing a tax revolt in eastern Uttar Pradesh.

The British annexed the entire kingdom of Awadh in 1856. Ayodhya: anglicised at the time as Ajodhya: became part of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. Between 1857 and 1859 the city was one of the major centres from which the First War of Indian Independence spread, igniting the broader revolt against the East India Company that swept north India that year.

Ayodhya today

After centuries of contested history, 22 January 2024 marked the consecration (prāṇa pratiṣṭhā) of the new Ram Janmabhoomi temple at the traditionally identified birthplace of Lord Rama. Once again the city stands as one of the most visited pilgrimage centres in India, drawing millions of devotees each year.

The Sarayu still flows past Ayodhya as it has since the Atharvaveda first praised this city as one “made by the gods, prosperous as heaven itself.”