WATCH | Meet Chandrakant Sompura, the architect who measured the land of Ram Mandir in footsteps!
10 Jan 2024 11:41:24
As the nation gears up for Ram Lalla's Pran Pratishtha in Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, let us get to know about the eminent architect Chandrakant Sompura who measured the land of Ram Mandir in their footsteps.
Chandrakant Sompura comes from a family who has been designing temples in India and abroad for several years. Interestingly, it was his grandfather who designed the revived and redone Somnath Mandir in 1949 as it now stands in its full glory on the Gujarat coast.
This Ahmedabad-based family has been into temple architecture and have designed more than 200 temples in India and abroad, including the Akshardham temple complex in Gujarat, the Swaminarayan mandir in Mumbai and the famed Birla Mandir in Kolkata.
According to the Outlook, it is this Birla Mandir in Kolkata that had impressed the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)'s now late president Ashok Singhal. He had approached the Birla family in Kolkata and sought references on who built it to build the Ram Mandir as he had hoped and striven all his life.
Measuring Land Not Easy Task
However, it was not an easy task as the court cases were going on and threats abounded. "We met and discussed the construction of the temple and had to go to Ayodhya to recce the land. With so much security present, I had to disguise myself as a devotee and measure the area with footsteps to make the masterplan," Chandrakant Sompura now recalls when speaking to Outlook magazine.
He made a grand design for the Ram Temple which was later approved by saints during the Allahabad Kumbh in the early 1990s. In 2020, a new design, with some changes from the original, was prepared by the Sompuras as per the Hindu texts the Vastu Shastra and the Shilpa Shastras.
#WATCH | Ahmedabad, Gujarat: Ram Temple's Chief Architect Chandrakant Sompura recalls the process leading to the construction of the temple at Ayodhya, "32 years ago, Ashok Singhal took me with him and told me to prepare a plan for the Ram Mandir to be constructed. At that time,… pic.twitter.com/Y4wZ6kpUKn
— ANI (@ANI) November 2, 2023
Chandrakant Sompura has been guiding the team from home due to his age and his sons have taken over the day-to-day work involved in the temple construction such as attending the meetings of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust.
The Sompura sons also told Outlook that Larsen and Toubro who have been assigned the construction work will begin the construction work of the temple and that it has to be completed within three to three-and-half years, as per the agreement.