When Satyanarayan Pandey was chosen for carving the idol of Ram Lalla for the new temple in Ayodhya, Pandey’s first thought was that the Lord himself had instructed Hanuman to get him from Jaipur. A staunch Hanuman bhakt, Pandey (65) comes from a family of sculptors. “We go back at least 12 generations. I learnt from my father”, said the native of Jaipur, Rajasthan.
Pandey’s idol, sculpted from a white makrana marble, was one of the two between which the final selection had to be made. A third sculptor was also given the task. Finally, Ram Lalla idol sculpted by Arun Yogiraj from Mysore was chosen.
Carving Lord’s idol in child form was not just a matter of sculpting a beautiful child. The form of the child was to come from meditation, prayer, research, tears and interpretation. The only instruction given to the sculptor was that the statue should show a five-year-old Ram.
“I meditated on the form, aligned it with what the shastras said about the Lord’s beauty, drew inspiration from satsang (spiritual discourse), went deep into my heart, tapped into the lifelong bhakti I have had, applied my mind to it, cried to Hanuman for inspiration and then the Lord’s form appeared before me”, said Pandey.
The word Pandey uses is ‘avtarit’. Like the various forms of Vishnu, of which Ram is one, it is more akin to a descending than a mere visualization.
The form of the God that Pandey finally settled on was one that was smiling in a manner which would soothe the greatest pain of his devotees. “Even when a devotee is in great tension, just by looking at the idol he should feel that his worries have vanished, that God is listening to him and responding smiling”, said Pandey.
The Lord’s form was to hold within himself all his qualities - kindness, an ever-smiling, forgiving presence, bravery (as depicted through his broad chest), idealism (depicted by a broad forehead) and beauty.
To achieve gentleness within the strength of marble is a challenge. That is where Pandey’s skills came in. “His thighs are rounded as a child’s are. Yet, they give the impression that if you were to massage them, as you do a child’s, they would be soft to the touch. His feet are so strong, yet so beautiful that even as they land on a lotus, the petals don’t crumble”, he said.
He was so confident of capturing the Lord’s impression that he had told Nripendra Misra (the chairperson of the temple construction committee) that if he was unable to do so, he would take samadhi in the Sarayu.
There were times when Pandey would hit a creative roadblock. He would then turn to Hanuman. “I would cry and plead. Throughout the process I imagined that Hanuman ji was next to me, and I was pressing his feet in between sculpting”. Pandey was helped by his 42-year-old son Prashant in the task.
Pandey’s seven-month journey at Ayodhya was marked by numerous coincidences, or as he terms them - miracles. One day, the students of the nearby Kar Sewakpuram came to him and said that they had dreamt of the Lord and he had asked why there was no water next to him. Since then, Pandey always had a small water pot near the idol.
Is he disappointed that his idol was not chosen? Pandey said that jealousy or disappointment would only defeat the bhakti that Ram invoked. “A true bhakt cannot hold grudges. He can only be happy that a struggle of 500 years has come to an end. That the sacrifice of so many has borne fruit. This idol too will find its place”, he said.
