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Famous spiritual leader and one of the foremost narrators of the Ramayana, Morari Bapu, has collected 18.61 crore rupees for the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. The corpus was gathered on Morari Bapu�s appeal that he wished to contribute at least Rs 5 crore for the temple. He had made this statement during the online katha being held in Pithoria in Gujarat. In response to his request, his followers from India and abroad pooled together a whopping Rs 18.61 crores. Of this, Rs 11.30 crore was gathered from within India and was credited towards the Ram temple construction trust today, on the day of Shila Nyas or laying of foundation stone of the grand three-storeyed and five-domed temple that will be built at Ram Janmabhoomi. Another Rs 3.21 crore was collected from the UK and Europe and Rs 4.10 crore from America, Canada and other countries. This amount will be transferred to the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra trust once it receives FCRA permission that is required to accept donations from abroad. Morari Bapu is not only one of the leading lights of the spiritual world in contemporary India, it is also to his credit that Ram Katha has become so popular in the country and abroad. He has been singing and explaining the Ram Charit Manas of Goswami Tulsidas from the supple age of 14. He has travelled across India and the world to popularise the Ramayana and to elucidate the nuances of the deeper meanings behind the text. Bapu has also been at the forefront of espousing universal brotherhood and fraternity among religions with the message of �truth, love and compassion�. It is for this reason that Morari Bapu had repeatedly expressed that he is in favour only of a peaceful resolution to the Ayodhya dispute. Last year in November, he had expressed immense happiness at the Supreme Court verdict which had allotted the Ram Janmabhoomi land for the construction of a temple but also provided for space for building a mosque elsewhere at a prominent spot in the city.