ABSTRACT
Ayodhyā is a holy city of the Hindus. Traditionally it has been considered the birthplace of Rāma, the hero of the Sanskrit epic Rāmāyana, which was set down as a text be tween the late centuries B.C. and the early centuries A.D. Rāma's divine status springs from the tradition that he was an incarnation of Vishnu, one of the three principal gods (the other two being Brahmā and Siva) upholding the Hindu universe. Traditionally Ayodhyā was also the capital of the mythical Ikshvaku Dynasty, which in turn belonged to the Solar Race of the Hindu cosmogony. Rāma's father, Daśaratha, was an Ikshvaku king who sent his eldest son, Rāma, into exile for fourteen years to keep his promise to one of his three queens (who wanted the kingdom to go to her own son) that he would grant her whatever she asked for. Rāma was accompanied into exile by his wife, Sītā, and one of his stepbrothers, Laksmana. Sītā was abducted by the ten-headed king of Lanka (generally identified with modern Sri Lanka), and to get her back Rāma was helped by an army of monkeys under the great monkey-hero Hanumān, who as a supreme devotee of Rāma enjoys divine status in modern Hinduism. The Rāmāyana revolves around the story of Rāma's battle against Rāvana, his triumph and recovery of Sītā, and even tual return to and reign in Ayodhyā.
