It is said that the person who realises that he is merely a medium and that God is the doer is destined for something divinely extraordinary. Arun Yogiraj, the Mysuru-based sculptor has become a household name after carving out the baal-swaroop idol of Bhagwan Ram Lalla for the Ayodhya Ram Mandir.
The sculptor has been at the receiving end of an outpour of love and appreciation for the magic he has created leaving Lord Ram’s countless devotees transfixed as the scarf placed on the Achal Murti was removed on the day of Pran Pratishtha.
“Ram Lalla gave me the order, I just followed it”
The man behind the magic, however, had a unique experience when he saw Ram Lalla during the consecration. In an interview with IndiaToday, Arun Yogiraj said that the eyes of the idol looked different while he was carving Ram Lalla but the eyes look different now.
“No, I cannot make it again. The idol looked different during the making. For ten days I was there only to give some markings and other things. After the Alankar (decoration) was done, I was sitting before the idol and I realised that this is not my creation. After going inside (the Garbh Griha) Bhagwan changed a lot. I even shared this with people sitting near me that Bhagwan is looking very different from what I carved. The eyes looked different while I was carving Ram Lalla and the eyes look different after Pran Pratishtha. Bhagwan has taken a different look altogether. I am sure I can’t repeat it again,” Yogiraj said when asked about how confident he is about making replicas of the Ram Lalla idol.
“Mere lalla ne mujhe aadesh diya, maine follow kiya (Lord Ram gave me the order, and I just followed it),” Yogiraj said adding that “I had to ensure that the idol adheres to the Shilpa Shashtra, representing a five-year-old form of Lord Ram, capturing the innocence of a child.”
Talking about the love and appreciation showered by the nation upon him, Arun Yogiraj said that he is overwhelmed. “I was very composed, but since last two days I have received so much love, that I am absolutely elated and overwhelmed. It’s not about my idol getting selected but the nation should have to like it. We had to believe that we were making Ram and he will come inside the idol we are carving.” Yogiraj said.
Expressing gratitude towards the holy city of Ayodhya Yogiraj on Wednesday shared some pictures of Ram Lalla on X and wrote, “Thank You Ayodhya.”
Thank you Ayodhya 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾 pic.twitter.com/OXXKs1h5Ri
— Arun Yogiraj (@yogiraj_arun) January 24, 2024
The Hanuman Ji connection
Talking about the divine experiences the sculptor had during the seven months of the carving of Ram Lalla, Yogiraj said that a monkey he believed was Hanuman Ji used to come and knock on the door at around 5 pm daily. “When, during the cold, we covered the gate, it used to come and bang on the door. I wasn’t sure if it was the same monkey, but it used to come daily at the same time. I told Champat Rai ji, the general secretary of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, about it, and he said that maybe it also wants to see Lord Ram’s idol,” he said.
The hardwork behind Ram Lalla’s mesmerising smile
Yogiraj commented on Ram Lalla’s captivating smile, pointing out that with stone, you only get one chance to carve perfection. “I had to spend a lot of time with children, and I felt disconnected from the outside world.” “I made a discipline and spent a lot of time with stone,” Yogiraj explained.
Yogiraj said that he used to question friends if Ram Lalla’s eyes looked fine. “It is not easy to bring bhaav (emotion) in a stone, and you have to spend a lot of time with it. So I decided I would be spending a lot of time with the stone, do my homework, study kids’ features, and everything else happened due to Ram Lalla,” Yogiraj said.
Interestingly, an old interview of the sculptor is going viral online. In this interview much before his idol was selected as Achal Murti, Yogiraj discussed the struggles at various stages of the idol-making process. “It was tough even for us, we struggled a lot for 6 months to look for him in the stone. “So, there has been a calculation made by scientists that the sun’s rays will fall upon Rama’s forehead on the day of Rama Navami. So they gave us the measurement of 51 inches,” Yogiraj said.
A meticulous cogitation was undertaken while selecting the stone to ensure that when milk is offered on the idol it does not harm the gut health of devotees. When Abhishek is performed using milk, the stone will not react to the contents of milk. Hence, it can be consumed as ‘prasad’ by devotees without any side effects on gut health. It’s an unreactive stone. Milk will come out as milk only. “See, during the testing, we get to know that the milk doesn’t see any reaction. Stones are porous and have some mica content, the Teertha from those stones are unfit for human consumption,” Yogiraj explained.
When asked if he wanted the idol sculpted by him or the ones carved by other two sculptors GL Bhat and Satyanarayana Pandey be selected, Arun said, “I will be happy even if their idol is selected. In the end, Rama should look beautiful, splendid, dignified and look like a child at the same time and give Darshana to all.”
Dumb question. Who wouldn't want his sculpture to be placed in the garbhagriha?
— Nanjesh Patel (@nanjeshpatel) January 24, 2024
"In the end, Rama should look beautiful, splendid, dignified and look like a child at the same time and give Darshana to all."
4/5 pic.twitter.com/jd3vAdFOyL
2.5 billion years old Krishna Shila used in making Ram Lalla idol
The ‘Krishna Shila’ or ‘Shyam Shila’ (black granite stone) from Karnataka used for making the Ram Lalla idol is around 2.5 billion years old. 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.
Apart from carving the Ram Lalla idol and the magnificent idol of Adi Shankaracharya installed at Kedarnath, Arun’s other work include the famous 14.5-feet white marble stone sculpture of the Maharaja Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar in Mysuru. So was the life-size White marble sculpture of Swami Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, and various statues at the railway station.
Arun Yogiraj, the fifth-generation sculptor
Yogiraj belongs to an illustrious family of sculptors. His father Yogiraj Shilpi, was one among the eight children of B Basavanna Shilpi, a Mysuru palace artist who was appointed to work on the Gayatri Temple, the Bhuvaneshwari Temple and similar other tasks. The idol of Kaveri on the Krishna Raja Sagar Dam was also built by his grandfather.
The revered Shilpa Sri Siddhalinga Swami, a sculptor to the royal family of Mysuru, was the teacher of Basavanna Shilpi. Swami is credited for designing the domes of the Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru. Shilpi joined Swami’s Gurukul in 1931 and trained for the next 25 years under his guidance.
Ram Lalla Pran Pratishtha
The Pran Pratishtha of Bhavya Ram Mandir in Ayodhya was conducted by the hands of PM Narendra Modi on 22nd January 2024. 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.
