Less crudely, such questions are partly answered everyday by things like the city of Ayodhya, in Thailand. The Thai Ayodhya is not only sacred; it is unlikely to concede that Madurai is only a derivative of Mathura. Once however you historicize Rama, once you locate his birthplace at a particular Ayodhya at a particular point of time, either to territorialize his claim to a temple or to oppose it, you atutomatically deny or diminish the sacrednessof the other Ayodhya and, while you may serve the purpose of those who view Rama as a national leader, a historical figure and a cultural hero, you cannot sustain his stuuatus as a god who, as a god, has to exist today. If Rama is, only then is he Rama. If Rama was, he is no Rama. This is the paradox in which one gets caught when one accepts the language of either the Hindutva-hawkers or the secular fundamentalist.
- Ashis Nandy
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