On our ride, Pushy was good enough to tell us all about Ayodhya - its history book is even bigger than the Shawnee Yella Pages!  Pushy said that during the time when the great king Dasaratha ruled, the city was beautiful; the whole area was filled with elaborate gardens and parks, huge homes bordered the wide avenues, and flowers seemed to bloom everywhere.  There were many shopping areas with friendly merchants, music could always be heard, and water and food resources were plentiful.  Dasaratha himself lived in an enormous white palace at the top of a small rise in the city and his loyalists always kept the area very safe.

But after Dasaratha's son king Rama left the city many years ago, the old monarchy was snuffed-out like one of the many filterless Marlboro butts of my troubled youth.  Since then, Ayodhya has been ruled by many separate sects including the Mughal Muslims (sounds like a baseball team we used to play out in the Panhandle!) in the early sixteenth century and even the Brits startin' back in 1856 - I guess them Redcoats had to find somebody else to pick on after we kicked 'em out of the good ol' USA!  Ayodhya now is fully under Indian rule while maintaining its rich ancient heritage and is today considered one of the world's most historically important Hindu holy cities.  Although it has been around forever, the city is still relatively small with only 50,000 residents, or 'bout half the size of Norman.

Ayodhya Temple
Websource: Hindu

Time was atickin' so Pushy took us on a quick tour of two main Ahodhya hot-spots:

Babri Mosque site:  Several centuries ago, them a-furr-mentioned Mughal Muslims built a mosque on allegedly the same spot where a Hindu temple in honor of Lord Rama once sat.  In fact, some even say ol' Rama may have popped outta his mama Kausalya's belly on this same site.  Ain't no wonder that some radical Hindus were boilin' mad about this so in 1992 they destroyed the structure, called the Babri Mosque.  Tensions between the Muslims and Hindus have been accelerated ever since and several thousand people have been killed in the area and around India in related skirmishes.   In 2003, a court-ordered archy-logical excavation of the site found some pillars and stuff that concluded there was indeed a Raman temple underneath that old mosque.  Over the years, the whole tenuous situation between the Muslims and Hindus has been tied-up in more legal proceedins which is today referred to as the "Ayodhya Debate".  The Hindus have threatened to build a new temple on the site but they are still waitin' on them courts to decide sumthin' first.

Sarayu River:  Rama threw himself and his brothers' birthfires into this river outside of the city at the end of his leadership of Ayodhya.  Pushy told us that today it is believed that the river can wash away all the sins of a guy's past.  When nobody wasn't lookin', I dipped a coupla toes in the edge of the crick - I know that didn't clean-up a whole lifetime of bad deeds but I'm hopin' it erased a few weeks or so!

Author's note: This story is another installment of our Okie's travels through the modern world of The Ramayana's and Mahabharata's  India.  He seems to be enjoying his trip and is obviously becoming more comfortable with his surroundings as the journey continues.  He is also a bit more verbal and not as timid as he was when his big vacation started.  He is getting pretty chummy with his tour guide and considers him a friend.  He is still a bit green, however, which adds to his excitement of seeing and learning about so many new and interesting sites in India.

The story itself is again a take on what the places and settings of the Ramayana look like today, or how they may appear if they really existed.  The visit to Ayodhya is much different than our Okie's first stop in Kishkindya because Ayodhya is currently very much alive, whereas Kishkindhya is definitely more fictional.  Ayodhya has had a very difficult past and can perhaps be considered a microcosm of many of the world's current major conflicts which have roots in the existing major religions.  Our Okie is discovering that life can be complicated on different scales, whether it be in Oklahoma or at a location on the other side of the planet.