Ayodhya (Ramayana)
According to Uttara Kanda, a later addition to the Ramayana, Rama divided the kingdom into North and South Kosala at the end of his reign, with respective capitals at Shravasti and Kushavati, and installed his two sons (Lava and Kusha) to rule them.
[15] Hans T. Bakker notes that no place called Ayodhya is attested by any epigraphic or other archaeological evidence before the 2nd century CE.
[15] According to Hans T. Bakker's analysis, the Sanskrit sources that mention Ayodhya but not Saketa are predominantly fictional in nature: these texts include Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Purana-pancha-lakshana.
[18] The Buddhist Pali-language texts name a city called Ayojjha or Ayujjha (Pali for Ayodhya), but suggest that it was located on the banks of the Ganges river (see below).
[19] In the early Jain canonical literature, "Aujjha" (a Prakrit form of "Ayodhya") is mentioned only once: the Thana Sutta describes it as the capital of Gandhilavati, a district of the "largely mythological" Mahavideha country.
[18] Among the Sanskrit sources, the identification of Ayodhya with Saketa first appears in texts from the Gupta period, including the Brahmanda Purana and Kalidasa's Raghuvamsha.
[21] In the 19th century, Alexander Cunningham of Archaeological Survey of India believed that Ramayana also identifies Ayodhya with a Saketa, based on a verse that supposedly describes Dasharatha as the king of "Saketa-nagara".
[22] A local oral tradition of Ayodhya, first recorded in writing by Robert Montgomery Martin in 1838,[23] mentions that the city was deserted after the death of Rama's descendant Brihadbala.
[15] These historians theorize that the 5th century emperor Skandagupta (who adopted the title Vikramditya) moved his residence to Saketa, and renamed it to Ayodhya, probably to associate himself with the legendary solar dynasty.
[25] The rise of the modern Ayodhya town as a centre of Rama worship is relatively recent, dating back to the 13th century, when the Ramanandi sect started gaining prominence.
[18] According to M. C. Joshi, "a critical examination of the geographical data available in Valmiki's narratives does not justify the commonly accepted identification of the ancient city with the modern one".
[13] According to Hans T. Bakker, the older parts of Mahabharata and Purana-pancha-lakshana mention Ayodhya as the capital of the Ikshvaku kings, but do not state that it was situated on the banks of the Sarayu river.
[18] According to Bakker, only the newer (5th century and later) parts of Ramayana explicitly describe Ayodhya as located on the banks of the Sarayu river.
[27] Buddhaghosha's commentary on the Samyutta Nikaya mentions that the citizens of Ayodhya (Ayujjha-pura) built a vihara for the Buddha "in a curve of the river Ganga".
[27] In his support, he presents another verse from Samyutta Nikaya (4.35.241.205), which states "Once Lord Buddha was walking in Kaushambi on the bank of the Ganga river".
[29] M. C. Joshi asserted that Ayodhya is mentioned in a Taittiriya Aranyaka verse, which is also found with some variations in the Atharvaveda:[30] aṣṭācakrā navadvārā devānāṃ pūrayodhyā tasyāṃ hiraṇyayaḥkośaḥ svargo loko jyotiṣāvṛtaḥ yo vai tāṃ brahmaṇo vedāmṛtenāvṛtāṃ puram tasmai brahma ca brāhmā ca āyuḥ kirtim prajāṃ daduḥ vibhrājamānām hariṇīṃ yaśasā saṃparīvṛtām puraṃ hiraṇyayīṃ brahmā viveśāparājitām Ayodhya (impregnable), the city of the gods, consists of eight circles (also cycles) and nine entrances; within it there is the golden treasure-dome, the celestial world, ever-illuminated with light (north pole).
[32] The verse describes the human body (pur) as having eight chakras and nine orifices:[33] aṣṭācakrā navadvārā devānāṃ pūrayodhyā tasyāṃ hiraṇyayaḥkośaḥ svargo jyotiṣāvṛtaḥ Eight-wheeled, nine-doored, is the impregnable stronghold of the gods; in that is a golden vessel, heaven-going (swarga), covered with light Lal points out that two cognate forms ayodhyena and ayodhyaḥ appear in Atharvaveda 19.13.3 and 19.13.7 respectively, in similar sense of "invincible".
