Jain firm donates surya tilak machine to Ram Mandir

BENGALURU: At the request of the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust, two public institutions along with a Bengaluru-based company managed by a Jain family have donated an optical machine to the upcoming Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
This machine will project the sunlight on a spot on the Ram Lalla idol’s forehead every Ram Navami - the Hindu festival commemorating the birth of the deity as per religious scriptures - for 3-4 minutes.
Worth Rs 84 lakh, the machine has been made by Optics & Allied Engineering Pvt Ltd (OPTICA), located on Jigani Link Road and designed as a collaborative effort between the Indian Institute of Astrophysics and Central Building Research Institute (CBRI).
OPTICA managing director Rajendra Kotaria told TOI that his company has built the high-precision optical system out of goodwill.
“It is after 500 years that Ram Lalla is returning. The prime minister’s vision, along with the temple trust’s, aligns with my own and I wholeheartedly support this project,” Kotaria said.
The machine has been a work-in-progress for about four months and it will be unveiled on the day of the temple opening. The machine works like a periscope and is built using titanium, brass and bronze as iron is prohibited in the temple.
“The first mirror in the periscopic arrangement will collect the sunlight when the sun is at a particular angle on the day of Ram Navami. This machine is built to automatically adjust itself to capture the sunlight and precisely project it on the forehead of the idol every Ram Navami,” a source at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) said.
It is learnt that the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple Trust approached the IIA to build the tilak machine. Sources in IIA said they could only offer their services in the design of the optical machine as the political-religious ideology of the temple is in contravention with the institute’s principles of scientific temperament. So, after the machine was designed, it was routed to CBRI in Roorkee, Uttrakhand, who appointed OPTICA for the manufacture and installation of the machine in Ayodhya.
When the Jain creator of the machine was asked how his religion aligns with the Hindutva ideology, Kotaria said, “Ram is for everybody and his principles are based on ‘giving’. My own religion of Jainism teaches me to ‘give’ so the philosophy is the same...”