First brick of Ram Mandir weighing 22.6kg, made of pure silver that is to be laid by PM Narendra Modi

The foundation brick for the temple at the Ram Janmabhoomi site will be laid on August 5, an auspicious day according to the Hindu calendar. Those in charge of the ceremony have confirmed that the mahurat is at 12.15pm as Lord Ram was born at that exact time.

PM Modi will be laying the foundation stone, a silver brick weighing 22.6 kilograms, given to him by Sant Nritya Gopal Rai, chairman of the Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust.

Mahant Kamal Nayan Das said “Bhakts all over the country have immense faith in Ram Lalla. We were given this silver brick by some bhakts and that will be put as the foundation stone by PM Narendra Modi. Ram temple is a temple of faith of crores of Ram bhakts. We didn’t have to procure this silver brick from anywhere.”

The designated successor of Nritya Gopal Das, also says that, when built, the Ram temple in Ayodhya would become the third-largest Hindu temple in the world. “Some change in the design of the existing model has been proposed. However, there will hardly be any changes to the basic structure,” he said.

Eighty-year-old Anu Bhai Sompura is the supervisor for the Ram Temple project. He has been with the Sompura Construction firm from Gujarat that has been part of at least a dozen temple projects over the past 30 years.

The Sompura family has been involved in temple construction for generations. Chandrakant Sompura, 80, has designed 131 temples along with his sons, including the Gandhinagar based Akshardham temple, Ambaji temple in Palanpur and Krishna Janmasthan in Mathura. Chandrakant’s father Prabhakar designed the famous Somnath temple in Gujarat.

The brick will be laid at 12:15:15 exact on 5th August as Lord Ram is said to have born at that exact time.