Patna's Hanuman temple to soon start kitchen for Ram temple devotees

The Bihar-based Mahavir Mandir Trust has decided to construct a community kitchen that will offer a community meal and sweets to devotees who visit the Ram temple site from outside Ayodhya.

Hanuman mandir or Mahavir Mandir is located opposite Patna railway station and is one of the most-visited temples in Bihar. It is centuries-old though its structure was renovated on a much larger scale in mid-80s by Kunal, and is now a veritable city landmark and a tourist attraction.

Enthused by the Supreme Court’s verdict, the secretary of the trust, Kishore Kunal, had earlier announced that the Patna-based religious body will contribute ₹10 crore for the construction of a temple for Ram Lalla.

“The Mahavir Mandir Trust had pledged this money five years ago, and we were waiting for the judgement. This amount of ₹10 crore would be sent in installments to the trust that the apex court has ordered to constitute for construction of the temple at the Ram Janmabhoomi. The moment the trust is formed, we will send the first instalment to its account,” he said.

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Assuming that it will take five years to build the temple, a yearly instalment of ₹2 crore would be given to that temple trust, he said.

“However, it so happens that the temple gets built in a shorter time period, then we will hand over the full funds in that period only,” the Mahavir Mandir Trust’s secretary said.

“We are very happy about the verdict of the Supreme Court in the Ayodhya case. Hanuman ji is a sewak of Shri Ram, and now Patna’s Hanuman mandir (Mahavir Mandir) will serve people coming to visit the birthplace of Lord Ram,” Kunal said.

“In January earlier this year, we started a community kitchen in Sitamarhi, the birthplace of Sita ji, and we call it Sita Rasoi. In Ayodhya, near the Ramjanmabhoomi site, we will start a similar kitchen, and it will be called Ram Rasoi,” Kunal told PTI.

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Now, the trust is waiting for the situation to get normal in Ayodhya, after which it plans to start the construction work of the community kitchen where they will offer daily meals and the Raghupati laddoos to devotees visiting Ayodhya.

These Raghupati laddoos or Naivaidyam laddoos are famous in Patna for their superior quality and unmatchable taste, the recipe for which has been kept secret by the trust.

Settling a fractious issue that goes back by more than a century, the Supreme Court in a historic verdict on Saturday (November 9) backed the construction of a Ram temple by a trust at the disputed site in Ayodhya, and ruled that an alternative five-acre plot must be found for a mosque in the Hindu holy town.

The top court in its verdict had asked the government to allot the five-acre plot in a “prominent” location in Ayodhya for constructing a new mosque. The disputed 2.77-acre plot will for now remain with a Central government receiver, who will hand it over to a government-created trust that must be created within three months.

The trust will be tasked with the construction of the temple.

(With inputs from agencies)