Preparations are now in full swing in Ayodhya for the inauguration of the Ram temple. The whole of India is waiting to witness this special day. In the meantime, the demand has increased for the book Ramcharitmanas published by Gita Press and to control this overflowing demand, Gita Press has announced great news for religious book readers.
In view of increased demand for Ramcharitmanas ahead of the much-waited January 22 Ram temple consecration ceremony in Ayodhya, Gita Press Saturday announced it will now allow users to read and download the the holy book free of charge on its official website.
free book from India’s one of the Largest publishing house
The Gita Press in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur that publishes religious texts since 1923. according to its manager Lalmani Tripathi, it has published 95 crore books in 15 languages. The Gorakhpur-based publisher, which was awarded the Gandhi Peace Prize last year, has stores across the country.
The press has decided to upload Ramcharitmanas on its website www.gitapres.org in 10 languages (English, Hindi, Assamiya, Bangla, Gujarati, Malayalam, kannada, Nepali, Marathi and Telugu). Giving a comparison, he said in 2022, it had printed and distributed around 75,000 copies of the Ramcharitmanas.
Overflowing demand
Citing limited physical space and increased demand, Gita Press manager Lalmani Tripathi said the Gorakhpur-based publisher has decided to allow users to download the book for free.
“Due to limited space, we are unable to meet the demand for printing and distribution of the Ramcharitmanas. In many places, we have to humbly say that we do not have stock available. Recently, we received a demand for 50,000 Ramcharitmanas from Jaipur and a demand for 10,000 copies came from Bhagalpur, which we had to regretfully decline. This is the scenario across the entire country,” Tripathi said.
“We do not have the preparedness to suddenly print and provide 2 lakh to 4 lakh copies of the Ramcharitmanas. Since last month, we have managed to make available 1 lakh copies of the book”, he said.
Desicion for uploading free E- book
Orders for this holy book are going at a fast pace. The manager added that even if they could make 1 lakh copies of the book available since last month, it is not possible for them to suddenly print 2 lakh to 4 lakh copies of Ramcharitmanas. So Gita Press is going to make the book available for free on their official website instead of taking immediate orders for printed books.
Gita press will provide this service for 15 days, allowing up to 50,000 people to download
“If the demand increases, “we will scale-up the traffic capacity, enabling up to 1 lakh people to download the Ramcharitmanas simultaneously”, Lalmani Tripathi added.
“Pran Pratishtha” of Ayodhya Ram temple led to buy Ramcharitmanas and other religious books
Since the announcement of the date of the “Pran Prathistha” at the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the demand for the book has increased manifold, the manager said.
The date of the ceremony, which will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was announced by the Ram Temple Trust on October 26 last year.
According to Mr. Lalmani, After the ‘Pran Pratishtha’, the demand for the book may further increase as people visit Ayodhya after the ceremony.
People are so enthusiastic that they are considering distributing the Ramcharitmanas, the Sunderkand, and the Hanuman Chalisa on a large scale for recitation.
“They might think about taking the Ramcharitmanas as ‘prasad’ to their homes,” he added.
Worry for book distributors
The manager of Gita Press has expressed concern about the livelihood of book distributors attached with the publishing house after talking about making books available online.
He said that “ We have over 2,500 book distributors associated with us, we also need to take into account their demands as their livelihoods are dependent on it. We are exploring various options to expand our capacity so that we can meet the increasing demand for books,” Tripathi said.
