Hindu PantheonCity
Ayodhya
The birthplace and capital of Lord Rama, setting of the great epic Ramayana and one of Hinduism's seven sacred cities.
About Ayodhya
Rama's capital in the poem
Ayodhya in Valmiki's Ramayana is Dasharatha's city on the Sarayu, from which Rama is exiled and to which he returns. The Bala Kanda opens with its prosperity; the Uttara Kanda closes with his rule. The epic is the map. Later temple politics and archaeology are a different argument. Cult of Rama at Ayodhya is historically late relative to the poem's composition. Read the city first as a narrative court, then as a pilgrimage that grew around the name.
On the map
Ayodhya among other places of the Hindu Pantheon.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Valmiki, Ramayana, Bala Kanda
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.
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