Petha, perfume, ladoos, bows: Gifts from all around start arriving as Ram temple consecration nears
Ayodhya prepares for the consecration ceremony. Also featured in the list of gifts for the January 22 event are special perfumes from Kannauj, 500 kg 'kumkum' leaves from Amravati, grains collected at a Ram temple in Delhi, flowers from Bhopal and papers with 'Lord Ram' written 4.31 crore times from Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara.
The Ram temple management committee has received other offerings such as a 108-foot incense stick, a 2,100-kg bell, a giant lamp weighing 1,100 kg, gold footwear, a 10-foot-high lock and key and a clock that simultaneously denotes time in eight countries, among others.
More than 3,000 gifts from Sita's birthplace in Nepal's Janakpur have also arrived. These include silver shoes, ornaments and clothes transported in a convoy of around 30 vehicles from the Janakpur Dham Ramjanaki Temple. A Sri Lankan delegation brought a special gift from the Ashok Vatika, a garden mentioned in the 'Ramayana'.
A nursery in Madhya Pradesh capital Bhopal has dispatched two consignments of 10,000 Bougainvillea flowers each to Ayodhya which will be used to decorate the temple premises.
On Friday, MP Chief Minister Mohan Yadav flagged off five trucks carrying five lakh ladoos, prepared at the Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain, to Ayodhya. The laddus weigh about 50 gm each, and the entire consignment is 250 quintals.
In addition, papers with 'Ram' written on them collectively 4.31 crore times will be sent from Chhindwara on January 22.
The Shri Krishna Janmasthan Seva Sansthan in Mathura is also going to send 200 kilograms of ladoos as an offering and the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, the official custodian of the Sri Venkateswara temple in Tirupati, will supply one lakh ladoos. Nagpur-based chef Vishnu Manohar has
