‘I am infused with pride’
DR RAJ Kolapan of Pretoria is one of only 50 people invited from outside India to participate in the historic and sacred consecration ceremony of the installation of the Ram Lalla murthie at the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra in Ayodhya, India, on January 21 and 22.
He will be accompanied by his wife, Premla Kolapan.
The site of this temple – which was demolished during the Mughal rule – marks the birthplace of Shri Ram.
After numerous efforts by archaeological, spiritual and political leaders, permission to reconstruct the Ram Janmbhoomi temple was granted in 2019. Its official opening will take place in the presence of spiritual masters, dignitaries, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Dr Kolapan, 67, is the founding member and spiritual leader of the Pretoria Bhajanai Mandram, which went on to build the first Swaami Ayyappan Temple in the southern hemisphere – the Shree Ayyappaa Kshetram.
His family have been promoting traditional Indian music and dance, as well as spiritual and religious education. He has authored four religious books, and featured on television and radio promoting the principles and ideals of Sanathana Dharma.
Of the ceremony in Ayodhya, Dr Kolapan said: “According to the ancient Indian epic, the Ramayana, Lord Ram was born in Ayodhya. In the 16th century, the temple was attacked and destroyed by Babur in his series of temple
raids across northern India. Later, the Mughals constructed a mosque, the Babri Masjid, on the site of the Ram temple, which Hindus believed for thousands of years to be the site of the birthplace of Lord Rama.”
He said the Hindu community built a platform next to the mosque where they conducted rituals and worship of Lord Rama.
“There were many instances of inter-communal violence between India’s Hindu and Muslim communities documented from 1853. The Sadhus of Ayodhya installed a murthi of Ram Lalla in the central hall of the disputed temple site on the night of December 22 and 23,1949. In the 1980s, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, launched a new movement to reclaim the site for Hindus and to erect a temple dedicated to the infant Rama (Ram Lalla) at this spot.”
He said in 2019, the Supreme Court of India delivered a unanimous verdict to give the disputed land to Hindus for the construction of a temple of Ram, while Muslims were given land to build a new mosque.
“The court referenced a report from the Archaeological Survey of India as evidence for the presence of a structure beneath the demolished Babri Masjid, deemed to be a temple. Two archaeological excavations in 1978 and 2003 found evidence indicating a Hindu temple’s remains existed on the site. The site on which the present Ram Mandir is built is the former location of the Babri Masjid, built after the demolition of an existing temple of Lord Ram,” he added.
Dr Kolapan said the foundation stone-laying ceremony for the construction of Ram Mandir was performed on August 5, 2020, by Prime Minister Modi.
“The Praan Pratishtha (life infusing consecration ceremony) of Ram Lalla, infant form of Lord Rama in the sanctum Sanctorum (Garbhagriha), along with the inauguration of the temple, is set to be done on January 22.”
He said he felt humbled at being part of such a historical event in such a sacred place. “From the time I was a small boy I sang the praises of Lord
Rama in the bhajans and kirtans I learnt. I truly feel that although I am the only South African going to be present at the ceremony on January 22, I will be carrying the yearning hearts and Ramloving spirit of all the devotees with me.
“I carried in me the same spirit for love of the Divine for most of my life in the temples I visited and sang, and more especially in the Ayyappan temple that was built by our bhajan group.”
Dr Kolapan said as a Hindu he was extremely proud of the efforts of the people, especially those who lost their lives, who tirelessly fought for almost 500 years for the establishment of the temple at the site that was rightfully the birth place of “our revered Lord Rama”.
“I am infused with pride and a feeling of elated ‘Indianness’ as I visualise the awesome beauty of this modern temple structure.”