All Set For ‘Surya Tilak’ Of Ram Lalla In Ayodhya Temple Tomorrow; Know Odisha Connection

Berhampur: When the Sun rays will fall on the forehead of the idol of Ram Lalla in newly-constructed Ram temple at Ayodhya as ‘Surya Tilak’ on the occasion of Ram Navami on Wednesday, it will have an Odisha connection.

The team of engineers, who have developed the system for Surya Tilak, is headed by Saroj Kumar Panigrahi, a native of Paralakhemundi in Gajapati district. He had obtained BTech certificate from Burla and then completed MTech from REC Rourkela after doing his school studies in Parlakhemundi.

Panigrahi is chief scientist and principal investigator of the engineering system that will lead the Sun rays to fall exactly on the forehead of Ram Lalla in sanctum sanctorum of the temple at the precise moment on Ram Navami.

The complete design of the system has been developed by Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), Roorkee with the Indian Institute of Astrophysics providing consultancy for the optical design. The fabrication of optical elements, pipes, tilt mechanism and other related components were carried out by Optics & Allied Engineering Pvt Ltd (Optica), a Bangalore based company.

The system ensures the appearance of a circular Surya Tilak, measuring 55 mm to 60 mm on the forehead of the idol using sunlight, mirrors and lenses. It will last for five minutes from 11.58 am to 12.03 pm on Wednesday. The Surya Tilak will appear on Ram Navami day every year and it will be first occasion on Wednesday.

Before implementing the opto-mechanical system in Ram Mandir, a scaled down model suitable for Roorkee locality was successfully validated and the full-scale model validated at Optica site in Bangalore in March.

The CBRI, Roorkee team along with IIA Bangalore and Optica Bangalore completed the installation of the system in first week of April and repeated trials have been done. Final trial using Sun rays was successfully done on April 8 at 12 noon.

The system, which is manually operated, has been installed on the temple’s third floor. It incorporates high-quality mirrors, a lens and vertical piping with lenses fixed at specific angles. In ground floor, the components include mirrors and a lens.