Ayodhya Ram Temple: This 64-year-old devotee walks from Hyderabad to Ayodhya with Ram Lalla’s padukas on his head

Hyderabad's Challa Srinivas Sastry carrying Lord Rama's footwear, walking thousands of kilometres to Ayodhya. (Image courtesy X)

The forthcoming inauguration of the Shri Rama temple in Ayodhya is all over the news. Whether it is the supporters and devotees or the critics and detractors, and whether they are from the fields of politics, religious institutions, media outlets or laypersons, everyone is talking of it.

So, even those involved with the making of the temple and its idols, sculptures,  doors and other accessories; the architects, designers, engineers, sculptors, workers…they are all also in the spotlight now.

Now, an ardent Rama devotee, Challa Srinivasa Sastry based in Hyderabad, too is making news as he makes his way to Ayodhya, walking  over thousands of kilometres, bearing on his head, the padukas or footwear of Rama for the new temple, well before its inauguration.

Challa Srinivas Sastry with Lord Rama's padukas.

The Pran-Prathishta (infusing the idol with life) ceremony of the Shri Rama Mandir at Ayodhya is scheduled for  January 22, 2024. Sastry’s dream is to have this spiritually charged footwear or padukas also to be placed in the sanctum-sanctorum after it is opened.

Commencing  his  journey from Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu around July 2023, as of today, he has traversed 7,600 km approximately on foot, with padukas atop his head. This padayatra has also entailed trudging up and down thousands (in all) of steps leading to hilltop temples. Talking to us from Chitrakoot––a significant site in the Ramayana story––he said another 270 km were remaining before he reached Ayodhya. The culmination of this padayatra is  going to be his meeting with the Uttar Pradesh  chief minister Yogi Adityanath and handing over the padukas to him.  Sastry says: “I had met the chief minister Yogi Adityanath  jee before commencing my  padayatra and told him of  my padayatra plan and that I would complete it and then hand over the padukas to him. He was pleased to hear that. He assured me that these padukas will be placed inside Ayodhya’s Shri Ram temple.”

The route being followed by Sastry is the one that Rama himself took after he was exiled from Ayodhya and moved southwards – only Sastry is doing the route in reverse and will reach Ayodhya at the culmination.

Challa Srinivas Sastry with Lord Rama's padukas.

What explains this devotional fervour? Srinivasa Sastry, an engineer by education who earlier worked as a sound engineer for many south-Indian films, explains: “I come from a family of ardent Rama devotees. My father Challa Sundara Sastry, was one of the karsevaks at the Ram Janmabhoomi. I later founded the Ayodhya Bhagyanagar Sitarama  Seva Foundation in Hyderabad.  I also donated five soild-silver bricks for the temple Shilanyas (foundation) ceremony at Ayodhya.”

When the temple construction began, it occurred to Sastry to offer something more.   So he decided to gift  silver padukas or footwear as his contribution.   He also decided to make a padayatra with them.

We understand the devotional fervour? However, why undertake, first, a padayatra with the padukas? Could he not have gifted the padukas to the temple immediately after he had them made? Sastry explains: “There are three reasons. I wanted to follow Rama’s route so these new padukas, would have symbolically walked as Rama did over the entire route. It was as if Rama’s symbol or representative was taking that same route. Secondly, I felt once I give away the padukas and they are installed in the temple, will it be within the reach of the ordinary devotee? To see these precious padukas, a devotee would have to go all the way to Ayodhya. However, along my padayatra, thousands of devotees including temple-priests have now had its darshan, and many received the privilege of touching it, praying to it and placing it on their head since I have carried it over thousands of km across the length and breadth of much of India. Moreover, even if the devotees did visit Ayodhya, if the padukas are placed at an unreachable place within the sanctum-sanctorum, then again the devotee would not have this privilege. This padayatra is one way, therefore, to spread the happiness and bring the padukas within everyone’s reach. Finally, a major reason was to have these padukas consecrated at major temples enroute. From the shrines at Kishkindha, Tryambakeshwar and Bhadrachalam to the world-famous Tirumala temple at Tirupathi and hundreds of other temples, these padukas have been  placed in the sanctum before the God’s idol and puja has been offered to them.”

Thus, the padayatra and temple-visits  are Sastry’s way of gifting spiritually charged footwear to Rama at Ayodhya.

Of all items he could have made, why the choice of footwear? For the unversed, the footwear or padukas have great significance in the Ramayana. When Rama was to be crowned king of Ayodhya and his wife, Sita, as the queen; fate intervened and he had, instead, to leave Ayodhya and go into exile for 14 years. His younger  brother Bharata was to be coronated in his place. However, Bharata protested the injustice, and refused to take the throne from his elder brother.  He entreated Rama to give him his padukas or footwear, carried  these on his head to the royal-court and then installed them on the throne signifying to all that Rama was still the king in his eyes and everyone too should accept that. Rama left Ayodhya and traversed a long route. Rama returned  14 years later and was crowned king.

Srinivasa  Sastry commissioned silver padukas  each weighing four kg or a total of eight kg. “I went to Ayodhya about three years ago, carrying these then-only-silver padukas on his head,  and did a  parikrama of the city which has a circumference of 38 km, everyday for  41 days (the auspicious mandala duration).” He also took these padukas to where he was invited––UK, London, Dubai, Singapore and Malaysia.

After he commenced the padayatra in July 2023, somewhere along the way he felt the footwear should be embellished further and covered with gold. So he gave them to a firm in Hyderabad. Pittampalli Ramalinga Chari of Kala Kutir received this assignment. Chari covered the footwear first with panchalohas or the five  auspicious metals (often used for making idols in India), as gold was not going to adhere easily, straightaway, to the silver. Then gold covering was used over these panchalohas and auspicious symbols created over them. With this, the weight of the padukas is now nine kg in all.

The padukas that Ram Lalla will wear.

The surface of the padukas is covered with superbly sculpted, sacred symbols each with a special significance. Among others are the conch and wheel or the Shankha-Chakra which are the main accessories of Mahavishnu (since Rama is believed to be his avatar); the lotus, elephant and cow all  associated with many gods especially Mahalakshmi (whose avatar Sita is believed to be); the auspicious pitcher or Kalash; Kalpavruksha (wish-fulfilling tree); victory-flag; Rama’s bow and arrow. The tip of the pointed-grip of each paduka is studded with a green-stone signifying the tamarind-tree leaves. Chari and his team consulted ancient texts on Shilpa-Shastra and Agama-Shastra and drew on their prior experience in this kind of work for this process.

Sastry will not give an exact figure for the cost of the padukas or his padayatra but the footwear is estimated to have cost Rs 65  lakh, approximately. He has already got a home for himself in Ayodhya from where he, and in his absence, his wife, is distributing laddus and feeding people everyday with the numbers of laddus and meals running into tens of thousands by now.

So, once it is mission accomplished, will he spend the rest of his life in peaceful retirement at Ayodhya? Sastry reveals: “No, I have more work to do. I am now going to commission a Dhanush (bow and arrow), take it along a similar padayatra for darshan by people and consecration at temples and then give it to this Ayodhya Ram Mandir.”

This current and very long padayatra, notwithstanding the noble motive, can be a physically fatiguing journey. Many of his exhuasted co-travellers did drop out along the way. So, how did he cope?  He exclaims: “My faith gave me strength and endurance!” Spoken like a true devotee!