The “Pran Pratishtha” of Ram Lalla in Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on January 22, 2024, has been etched into the glorious history of Bharat. Arun Yogiraj, a renowned sculptor from Karnataka, sculpted the Achal Murti depicting Lord Ram in his child form. Interestingly, the ‘Krishna Shila’ (black granite stone) from Karnataka used for making the Ram Lalla idol is around 2.5 billion years old.
Speaking to NDTV, HS Venkatesh, Director of the National Institute of Rock Mechanics (NIRM), Bengaluru said that the stone is 2.5 billion years old and is highly durable.
“The stone is 2.5 billion years old. The rock is highly durable and resistant to climatic variation and will sustain thousands of years in this subtropical zone with minimum maintenance,” Dr Venkatesh said.
The stone was selected from Mysuru district’s Jayapura Hobli village, which is located in an area known for high-quality granite mines. Subsequently, it was tested by the National Institute of Rock Mechanics (NIRM), a key body that tests rocks for Indian dams and nuclear power plants.
The granite block was analysed in laboratories at Kolar Gold Fields and deemed to be “massive, melanocratic, and uniform in colour, devoid of any internal cracks and fractures.” The stone is finely grained, hard, and compact.
It exhibited strong compressive strength, tensile strength, bending strength, breaking strength, and elasticity. “In addition, the rock possesses high density, low porosity and water absorption,” Venkatesh said.
Interestingly, because the earth is said to have formed around 4.5 billion years ago and the black granite rock is 2.5 billion years old, the statue’s rock has witnessed more than half of the planet’s history.
Notably, there are two types of idols in the Ram Mandir: one is known as the ‘Utsav Murti’ which was placed in 1949 and the other is sculpted by Arun Yogiraj as the ‘Pran Pratishtha Murti’. Pran Pratishtha idols cannot be moved anywhere, they stay where they are installed. At the same time, ‘Utsav Murti’ is taken out in events like Jhankis or Shobha Yatras.
The Pran Pratishtha of Bhavya Ram Mandir in Ayodhya has been conducted by the hands of PM Narendra Modi. The grand idol of Shri Ram’s Baal Swarup (childhood form) is now the revered God of over a billion Hindus across the world. There were 15 “Yajmans” for the consecration ceremony with RSS leader Anil Mishra and his wife Usha being the mukhya or pradhan yajman.
