Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravishankar reacted on Wednesday to Jyotishmath Shankaracharya Swami Avimukteshwarananda Saraswati’s remarks on the Ram temple ceremony, saying Lord Ram himself established a Shivling without a temple.

Shankaracharya had said he wouldn’t attend the January 22 event as the scriptures are not being followed for the ceremony.

“There are other provisions where you can keep building the temple after the prana pratishta. At Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, Lord Rama himself did the prana pratishta of a Shivalinga. That time, there was no temple. He didn’t have time to build a temple. He did prana pratishta, and later the temple was built,” Ravishankar said.

The Art of Living founder further said the Madurai and Tirupati Balaji temples were small. They were built later by the kings.

“It’s a dream coming true. For five centuries, people have waited for this. It’s correcting the wrong that had happened 500 years ago. So there’s a great sense of celebration and a lot of enthusiasm in the whole country,” Ravishankar added.

Earlier, Shankaracharya explained why he wouldn’t attend the ceremony. “It is not right to instill life (pran-pratishtha) in the body without its head or eyes. This goes against our scriptures. Hence, I will not be going there because if I go there, people will say scriptures have been violated in front of me. Hence, we have raised the issue with responsible people, especially with the members of the Ayodhya Trust – that the celebration should be done once the temple is fully constructed,” Swami Avimukteshwarananda said.