AYODHYA — Volunteers in Ayodhya lit more than 26 lakh earthen lamps along the banks of the Saryu river on Saturday evening. The display surpassed last year's Guinness World Record for the largest simultaneous display of oil lamps at the city's tenth Deepotsav. The festival is held on the eve of Diwali, which falls on Sunday this year.

The Uttar Pradesh government has staged Deepotsav every year since 2017, and each edition has set out to break the record of the one before. Last year's festival was certified by Guinness World Records adjudicators at 26,17,215 lamps. Before that, the count stood at about 22.2 lakh in 2023 and 25.1 lakh in 2024.

The display stretches across the 56 ghats of Ram ki Paidi and the riverfront. Students and staff from Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Avadh University again made up the bulk of the volunteer force, according to the state tourism department. They spent several days laying out, filling and wicking the diyas before drone teams and Guinness representatives verified the final count. The programme also included a procession of tableaux depicting scenes from the Ramayana, a re-enactment of Lord Ram's return to Ayodhya, a mass aarti on the riverbank, and laser and drone shows over the river.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who has made the festival a centrepiece of his government's religious tourism push, attended the ceremony with cabinet colleagues. State tourism officials have repeatedly cited Deepotsav as a driver of hotel occupancy and visitor numbers in Ayodhya since the Ram temple was consecrated in January 2024. District authorities deployed heavy security and traffic restrictions across the city as crowds gathered on the ghats.

The record attempt has drawn criticism in past years over the waste it leaves behind. Images of residents scraping leftover oil from extinguished lamps circulated widely after earlier editions. Organisers said this year's clean-up and oil-collection arrangements had been expanded, and that the city's celebrations would continue through Diwali on Sunday.