Master builder

The architect of the temple attaches little importance to the site

Chandrakant Sompura, architect of the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple, is hardly finicky about the site in Ayodhya. Left to himself, he would build the temple anywhere including Ahmedabad, his home town. Sompura said Prime Minister Rao had found a practical way to build the temple. Rao wanted construction to start a few feet away from the disputed site, so that the temple and the mosque could be good neighbours, the pilgrims proceeding from the temple to the birthplace at the mosque. "Had it been accepted the temple would have been complete by now," said Sompura. But the VHP was adamant that it could be built only at the spot where Rama was born."

Sompura, 55, is from a family that is a premier exponent of the Nagri style of temple architecture prevalent in the north and the west of the country. The year 1960 was a watershed in his life; the lad of 17 dropped out of college and joined the family profession when his father Balwantrai Sompura drowned in the Ganga while renovating the Badrinath Temple. Grandfather Prabhashanker Sompura, the author of 14 books on temple architecture, came out of retirement to keep the tradition alive. The grandpa became Chandrakant's guru.

Sompura has not looked back since then. His finest achievement is the Swaminarayan temple he built at Neasden in London in a record 28 months.

It was VHP chief Ashok Singhal who asked him to design the Ram Janmabhoomi temple and later entrusted him with building it. "About 150 artisans are working at Pindwara near Sirohi in Rajasthan," said Sompura, though he was mourning his mother who died in May.

Sompura said artisans were following computerised directions as in the case of the Swaminarayan temple for which the best Bulgarian limestone from Vrtsa and marble from Sardinia were shipped to Kandla in a container. Before loading, the stones were cut to the required size and every stone was numbered. Over 2,500 artisans from Gujarat and Rajasthan cut, polished and sculpted 26,300 stones, which were then shipped to London and assembled using their code numbers. It was as if the temple were a jigsaw puzzle.

Why just 150 workers for the Ayodhya project which is four times bigger than the London temple? "We do not know when the permission to build the temple would come," said Sompura. "The local Muslims are all for the temple. They know that a major pilgrimage centre can bring them economic opportunities. But Muslim politicians are opposed to the temple and the court process will be time consuming. The two shortcuts for the construction are an unlikely compromise, and the BJP getting a clear majority at the Centre. Even if I use 2,500 workers, it will take about four years to complete the temple."

Sompura is accustomed to delay. It took him seven years to get the permission of London town planners. "They refused to believe that a structure without reinforced concrete would be durable. The temple was designed to be made of stone to last forever." Patience had its reward. Sompura won the 1995 Natural Stones special award from the Stone Federation for the best architect designer. Apart from the Ayodhya temple, he is building the Ramnath temple near Gondal in Saurashtra.

Going by the family lore, the Sompuras were Brahmin priests who descended from the moon. They had come down to the earth to assist the Moon god perform a yagna to escape a curse and could not return to the moon because they had entered the world of birth and death cycle.

Fables are fanciful but there is something that does not die in the Sompura family. It is the living tradition, and it has drawn into its fold Chandrakanta's sons Nikhil and Aashish, who assist their father in his work on the Ayodhya temple.
ARVIND J. BOSMIA in Ahmedabad - June 7, 1998