Ayodhya Ayodhya.ogg|pronunciation (Hindi: अयोध्या, IAST Ayodhyā) is an ancient city of India, the old capital of Awadh, in the Faizabad district of Uttar Pradesh. Ayodhya is described as the birth place of Hindu god Shri Ram. This Hindu holy city is described as early as in the Hindu Epics. During the time of Gautama Buddha the city was called Ayojjhā (Pali). Under the British Raj the city and the administrative area around it was called Oudh. It is on the right bank of the river Sarayu, 555 km east of New Delhi. The word ayodhya is Sanskrit for "not to be warred against". Some Puranas like the Brahmanda Purana (4/40/91) consider Ayodhya as one of the six holiest cities in Hinduism.
In the first few centuries of the Common Era it was caled Śāketa. Śāketa, or 沙奇 (Pinyin: Shāqí) was conquered by the great Kushan / Yuezhi Emperor Kanishka c. 127 CE, who made it the administrative centre of his eastern territories. The name occurs again in Faxian as 沙祗 (Pinyin: Shāzhī) in the early fifth century. It is not clear when the name changed, but by the time of the visit of the Chinese pilgrim monk, Xuanzang, c. 636 CE, it was known as Ayodhya.
