Ajodhya
(2002 pop. 51,000). An ancient city also called Ayodhya, Oudh, or Awadh, Ajodhya, now part of the city of Faizabad, lies on the Ghaghara River in the eastern Uttar Pradesh state of northern India. Ajodhya is one of seven holy places for Hindus, revered as the legendary birthplace of Rama, hero of the Ramayana epic. It was the capital of the Ikshvaku dynasty's Kosala kingdom (sixth century BCE) and a center of Gupta power (third– fifth centuries CE). By the fifth century CE the Chinese Buddhist monk Fa-hsien reported one hundred monasteries there. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Ajodhya became part of the Kanauj kingdom, then the Delhi sultanate, the Jaunpur kingdom, and, in the sixteenth century, the Mughal empire. It came under the control of the East India Company in 1764.
In 1856 Ajodhya was annexed by the British; loss of hereditary rights helped spark the 1857 Indian Mutiny. Oudh joined the Agra Presidency in 1877 to form the North-West Provinces and later the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. On 6 December 1992, the sixteenth-century Mosque of Babur, built on a site sacred to Hindus and Muslims, was demolished by Hindu fundamentalists; over one thousand died in the ensuing riots.
Hindus lay the foundation stones at the temple in Ajodhya that had been the source of conflict between Hindus and Muslims. (ZEN ICKNOW/CORBIS)Further Reading
Chanchreek, K. L., and Saroj Prasad, eds. (1993) Crisis in India. Columbia, MO: South Asia Books
Jindal, T. P. (1995) Ayodhya Imbroglio. Columbia, MO: South Asia Books.
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