World’s Largest Ramayan Temple In Bihar To Be Completed By 2025

The construction work for 'Virat Ramayan Mandir', which once built is set to become world's largest Ramayan temple, has already commenced near Kesariya in East Champaran district of Bihar. The work is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025, i.e. in straight two and half years' time.

The three-story temple will be erected on a 3.76 lakh square feet plot of land in the villages of Kaithwalia-Bahuara, approximately 120 km from Patna. The temple itself will span 280 feet in length and 540 feet in width, making it larger in size compared to the Ayodhya temple.

It will feature twelve domes, with the tallest one soaring to a height of 270 ft and another structure to 198 feet. Additionally, the complex will house approximately 22 sanctum sanctorum dedicated to different deities, along with marriage halls and guest houses.

Though the 'bhumi pujan' for the temple held in 2012, the construction could not begin due to objections raised by the Cambodia government over its proposed name resembling the 12th-century temple 'Virat Angkor Wat' in that country. This temple will be taller than the Chola era Cambodian temple.

After a long wait for about a decade, the construction of world-class temple began with prayer to Lord Vishvkarma on Tuesday. Amid the chanting of 'Jai Sri Ram' and 'Jai Hanuman' by the locals gathered to watch the event, over 200 workers supported by heavy machines began the underground piling for 3,001 pillars.

While construction of the pillars will be completed by November this year, the whole temple work would be completed with the installation of the world's largest 'Shivling' 2 years later involving an initial infrastructural cost of Rs 500 crore, being funded by the Mahavi Temple Trust of Patna, said Times of India report quoting trust secretary Acharya Kishore Kunal, who is a former IPS officer, as saying.

The entire cost of the temple is being met from small public donations as offerings to the temple, profits earned on sales of 'prasad' and fixed charges for special prayers or religious ceremonies. Temple trustee and former Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court S.N. Jha, representatives of the construction company and a villager, Mohammad Ishtiyaq Khan, who donated about 18 kattha land free of cost for the project, were present on the occasion.