Ayodhya is a city and the administrative headquarters of Faizabad district (officially Ayodhya district) of Uttar Pradesh, India.It shares a municipal corporation with its neighbouring twin town of Faizabad.
The city is identified by some with the legendary city of Ayodhya, and as such, is the birthplace of Rama and the setting of the epic Ramayana. The accuracy of this identification is central to the Ayodhya dispute: modern scholars variously believe that the present-day Ayodhya is same as the legendary Ayodhya, or that the legendary city is a mythical place that came to be identified with the present-day Ayodhya only during the Gupta period around the 4th–5th century AD. In 1992, it lead to the demolition of the Babri Masjid mosque by Hindu mobs with the aim to replace it with a temple of Rama.
The present-day city is identified as the location of Saketa, which was an important city of the Kosala mahajanapada in the first millennium BC, and later served as its capital. 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 chakravartins. 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 Rama, Ayodhya (Awadh) has been regarded as one of the seven most important pilgrimage sites (Saptapuri) for Hindus. It is believed that the birth spot of Rama was marked by a temple, which is said to have been demolished by the orders of the Mughal emperor Babur and a disputed mosque erected in its place. The Ayodhya dispute concerns activism by Hindu groups to rebuild a grand temple of Rama at the site of Janmabhoomi.The five judges of the Supreme Court bench heard the title dispute cases from August to October 2019. On 9 November 2019, the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, vacated the previous decision and ruled that the land belonged to the government per tax records. It further ordered the land to be handed over to a trust to build the Hindu temple. It also ordered the government to give alternate 5 acre land to Sunni Waqf Board to build the mosque.
Ayodhya has a humid subtropical climate, typical of central India. Summers are long, dry and hot, lasting from late March to mid-June, with average daily temperatures near 32 °C (90 °F). They are followed by the monsoon season which lasts till October, with annual precipitation of approximately 1,067 mm (42.0 in) and average temperatures around 28 °C (82 °F). Winter starts in early November and lasts till the end of January, followed by a short spring in February and early March. Average temperatures are mild, near 16 °C (61 °F), but nights can be colder.
PM Narendra Modi today performed the ‘bhoomi pujan,’ or ceremonial stone laying ceremony for the Ram temple to be built in Ayodhya. UP CM Adityanath, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and other dignitaries were present on the occasion today
