The Gorakhpur-based publisher is famous for printing Hindu religious books and texts in myriad languages. According to manager Lalmani Tripathi, ever since the date of the consecration ceremony in Ayodhya was announced, the demand for Ramcharitmanas has increased exponentially.

“We do not have the preparedness to suddenly print and provide 2 lakh (200,000) to 4 lakh (400,000) copies of the Ramcharitmanas. Since last month, we have managed to make available 1 lakh (100,000) copies of the book,” Tripathi told PTI.

“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,” he added.

Anyone wanting to read Ramcharitmanas can visit the Gita Press website where the book is freely available in 10 languages. It will be made downloadable by Tuesday (Jan 16) and initially, 50,000 readers would be able to keep the e-copy of the book.

Tripathi said if the demand increases, “we will scale up the traffic capacity, enabling up to 1 lakh (100,000) people to download the Ramcharitmanas simultaneously”.

Established in 1923, Gita Press is one of the world’s largest publishers and has published 95 crore books in 15 languages so far, according to Tripathi. Its objective is to “promote and spread the principles of Sanatana Dharma, the Hindu religion among the general public by publishing Gita, Ramayana, Upanishads, Puranas, Discourses of eminent Saints and other character-building books”.