Lord Ram

About

Since the Ayodhya consecration in January 2024, a great many Indian homes have acquired a Ram they did not previously keep. He was always there in the Ramayana, in the Hanuman Chalisa, in the greeting people exchange across much of the north. He was not always there as a murti on the shelf. That changed quickly, and it has left a lot of first-time buyers choosing between two quite different objects with nobody explaining the difference. He is called Rama, Shri Ram, Ram ji, and Maryada Purushottam, the one who holds the line of right conduct. In the south he is Sri Rama. As a small child he is Ram Lalla. With his family around him he is the Ram Darbar, or the Ram Parivar. Ram Lalla or Ram Darbar, and how to choose These are not two styles of the same thing. They are two different subjects, and they do different work in a house. Ram Lalla is Ram as a child of about five, standing alone, bow in hand. It is the form of the Ayodhya murti and it is what most people now mean when they ask for a Ram idol. A single figure needs very little room, reads clearly from across a room, and sits comfortably beside deities a household already keeps. It suits a mandir that is already crowded, and a person whose devotion is to Ram specifically rather than to the whole story. Ram Darbar is the court, and it is a scene rather than a figure: Ram at the centre, Sita to one side, Lakshman to the other, Hanuman kneeling in front with his hands folded. People keep it for the family rather than the individual, which is why it is the more usual choice for a household mandir, for a griha pravesh, and for a newly married couple. It is also the wider object by some margin. A Darbar needs bench width where a single Ram needs only a spot. If you are buying for somebody else and cannot ask, the Darbar is the safer gift, because it reads as a blessing on a whole household. A single Ram Lalla reads as a personal devotion, which is lovely when you have guessed right about the person and slightly off whe