Sompuras: The architect family that is building the grand Ram Temple in Ayodhya

Team Udayavani, Aug 6, 2020, 12:34 PM IST

The bhoomi pujan of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya was performed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, August 5. The construction of the grand Ram Temple will begin soon.

The temple design follows the Nagar shaili and Dravidian style of architecture. It is being built by the Sompura family of temple architects, led by the patriarch Chandrakant Sompura.

According to financial express, The Sompura family has rich ancestry of building temples as the father of Chandrakant Sompura, Prabhashankar had built the iconic Somnath Temple in Prabhas Patan

Chandrakant Sompura had begun work on Ram Lalla ‘s temple in Ayodhya after first visiting the site with then Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) chairman Ashok Singhal.

Chandrakant Sompura, is the grandson of Prabhashankar who had designed the Sompura Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar.

Initially, Sompura would make the pencil drawings and had drawn upto 2-3 plans of the mandir. Also, he measured all the requisite dimensions with his footsteps

He made a grand design for the Ram Temple which was later approved by saints during the Allahabad Kumbh in the 1990s. Chandrakant Sompura says that the construction will be completed within 24 and 30 months. However, Sompura, 70 could not attend the bhumi poojan due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Chandrakant’s sons Nikhil, 55, and Ashish have taken over the execution of the project, and Ashutosh, 28, the civil engineer son of Nikhil, has joined them after training for two years in temple architecture through site visits and home schooling.

Ashish has said to have built the private temple of Mukesh Ambani at his house Antilia.

The Ram temple is said to reach a height of 161 feet, width of 235 feet and length of 360 feet. Ground floor will house idol of ‘Ram Lalla’,  First floor will house ‘Ram Darbar’ and Second floor will accommodate expansion of the structure.

Also, 2  lakh bricks inscribed with ‘Shri Ram’ have been collected to form temple’s edfice.