Rama’s attack on the demonkingdom of
Lanka. In other accounts the worship
comes after the conquest of Lanka, as a
rite of thanksgiving. In either case, both
sets of stories portray Rama as a devotee
(bhakta) of Shiva and thus buttress
Shiva’s status as the greatest god of all.
Rameshvaram
(“Rama’sLord”) Sacred site (tirtha) on
an island off the coast of the state of
Tamil Naduin the Palk Strait, which sep-
arates Sri Lankafrom the mainland.
Rameshvaram is one of the most impor-
tant sacred sites in India, for several dif-
ferent reasons. It is one of the four
dhamsassociated with the philosopher
Shankaracharya, which mark the geo-
graphical boundaries of the subconti-
nent. It also has specific mythic
associations that make it holy both to
devotees (bhakta) of Shivaand Vishnu,
two of the most important Hindu
deities. For Shiva’s devotees, the pillar-
shaped image (linga) of Shiva there rep-
resents the god in his manifestation as
Rameshvar(“Rama’s Lord”). This image
is also one of the jyotirlingas, a network
of twelve lingas deemed especially holy
and powerful, and at which Shiva is said
to be uniquely present. For Vishnu’s
worshipers, Rameshvaram is held to be
the place from which the god Rama
staged his attack on the demonking-
dom of Lanka. According to tradition,
upon Rama’s return with his rescued
wife Sita, the image of Rameshvaram
was consecrated in gratitude for his suc-
cess. Rameshvaram also has very old
connections with the sacred city of
Benares, and even today pilgrims come
from there bearing Ganges water to
offer to Shiva.
Ramgarh
Architectural site in the VindhyaHills,
160 miles south of Benares. An inscrip-
tionin one of the caves at Ramgarh,
estimated to be from the third
century B.C.E., contains the earliest
datable reference to devadasis, a
special class of women who served the
deitiesof certain temples.Ram Janam Bhumi
Site in the city of Ayodhya, where some
claim the god Ramawas born; since the
early 1980s this spot has witnessed some
of India’s most intense postindepen-
dence religious conflict. The site has
long been a source of controversy
between the Hindu and Muslim com-
munities, and British sources record
hostilities there in 1855 and 1934. Until
1992 Ram Janam Bhumi was occupied
by the Babri Masjid, a mosque con-
structed in 1528 by command of Mir
Baqi, a general of the Moghul emperor
Babar (1483–1530). Local tradition holds
that the mosque was built after the raz-
ing of an existing Hindu temple there,
although there is little evidence for this
claim. A few months after India gained
independence in 1947, several local
Hindus secretly installed images of the
child Rama, his wife Sita, and his brother
Lakshmana in the mosque, claiming
that the images had miraculously
appeared in a ball of light. The govern-
ment, having only recently quieted the
Hindu-Muslim massacres that accom-
panied the partition of British India into
India and Pakistan, was loath to ignite
religious passions, and its solution,
therefore, was to padlock the com-
pound’s gates and send the case to the
courts for resolution, where it lan-
guished for almost forty years.
The early 1980s saw renewed contro-
versy over the site, when the Vishva
Hindu Parishad(VHP), a Hindu nation-
alist organization, first began calling for
the site’s “liberation,” proclaiming that
the existing mosque was an insult to all
Hindus. The VHP’s campaign portrayed
the mosque as a symbol of Muslim icon-
oclasm and depicted government efforts
to protect it as an attempt to appease
the Muslim community and retain their
votes. In 1986, the VHP’s drive to liberate
the site was aided by Rajiv Gandhi’s
national government. Together, the VHP
and the Gandhi administrationRameshvaram