‘I am the luckiest person on Earth’: Ram Lalla idol sculptor Arun Yogiraj
The sculptor, whose creation Ram Lalla, has been consecrated as the presiding deity of Ayodhya, hails from a family of sculptors of five generations
The sculptor and his creation: Ram Lalla installed at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and sculptor Arun Yogiraj at work | Photos (left) PTI and Twitter/@yogiraj_arun
With Ram Lalla, the presiding deity being consecrated on Monday (January 22), at the grand temple that has come up in Ayodhya, its creator Arun Yogiraj called himself the “luckiest person on the earth now” as he set his foot on the holy city by the Saryu to see the proceedings of the ceremony.
Speaking to ANI, the young sculptor said he felt like he was in a “dream world”. “I feel I am the luckiest person on the earth now. The blessing of my ancestors, family members and Lord Ram Lalla has always been with me. Sometimes I feel like I am in a dream world,” the agency quoted him as saying.
The fifth-generation sculptor from Mysuru in Karnataka hit the headlines on January 18 when all the trustees of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra, supervising the construction of the Ram temple, selected the 51-inch-tall statue of Ram Lalla carved out of black granite by Yogiraj to be consecrated and placed in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple.
Yogiraj hails from a famous family of sculptors of five generations whose grandfather Basavanna Shilpi had the King of Mysore as his patron. His father is also a skilled sculptor who trained him in the art since he was a child. Yogiraj worked for a brief period with a private company after completing his master's in business administration. He left the corporate world in 2008 and joined his father to carve a career out of sculpting.
His childhood passion for chiselling sculptures out of stone brought him fame when he was commissioned to make a statue of Adi Shankaracharya in 2019, which was installed at Kedarnath in Uttarakhand in November 2021. A year later, a 30-feet statue of Subhash Chandra Bose, made by him, became the centre of attraction after it was installed under the Amar Jawan Jyoti canopy at the India Gate in the national capital. The bust was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 8, 2022.
He is also credited with creating a 15-feet tall statue of Dr. BR Ambedkar, apart from a statue of Swami Ramakrishna Paramahamsa in Mysore and a 14.5-feet tall statue of King of Mysore Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar, among many others.
With his creation, Ram Lalla, now having been installed in the sanctum sanctorum as the presiding deity of the Ram Temple, inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi, the spotlight is again on the sculptor.