Ram Navami celebrates the birth of Rama, the prince of Ayodhya revered as the seventh avatara of Vishnu and, in the devotional traditions, as the model of righteous conduct (dharma) and the ideal king. It falls on the ninth day (navami) of the bright fortnight of the month of Chaitra (March-April), the ninth and final day of the spring Navaratri, and tradition places his birth at noon. His story is told in the Ramayana of Valmiki and, for many devotees, in Tulsidas's Hindi Ramcharitmanas: the exile of the rightful heir, the abduction of his wife Sita by the demon-king Ravana, and the war of recovery that ends in Rama's victory and return.
The day is kept with fasting, temple worship and the continuous reading or recitation of the Ramayana, and at temples the birth is marked at midday with the cradling of an image of the infant Rama, echoing the observance of Krishna's birth. In Ayodhya, held to be his birthplace, and along the routes of his story, the festival draws large gatherings and processions. Ram Navami often closes a nine-day spring Navaratri devoted to the Goddess, so that the two great strands of Hindu devotion, to the Goddess and to Vishnu's avatars, meet at its end; and Rama's reign, Ram Rajya, remains in Hindu thought a byword for the just and ordered society.