Ayodhya city in northern India, in Uttar Pradesh state on the Ghaghara (Gogra) River. Ayodhya is a thriving trade center that historically has been an important center for several religions.
An ancient city, Ayodhya was already an important trade center by 600 BC and was for a time the capital of the powerful kingdom of Kosala. Historians have identified Ayodhya as being the same as a town once known as Saketa, which was an important Buddhist center in the 5th century BC. The Buddha is said to have visited Ayodhya on many occasions, and it remained an important Buddhist center until the 5th century AD, when the Chinese monk Faxian recorded the large number of Buddhist monasteries he saw there. Ayodhya was also an important center for Jainism in the early centuries AD, and Jain texts record the visit of Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, to the city. By the 7th century the Chinese monk Xuanzang recorded seeing a number of Hindu temples in Ayodhya.
