Can Ram Lalla (Lord Ram as a child) be denied sleep for 72 hours at a stretch to enable millions of devotees, who are expected to throng Ayodhya on the occasion of Ram Navami festival to have his 'darshan' at the Ram temple and also help manage the crowd?

While the district administration in Ayodhya is gearing up for crowd management on Ram Navami on April 17 when an estimated 40 lakh devotees were expected to visit the temple town, the saints had opposed the reported plan to keep the Ram Temple open round-the-clock for three days from April 15 to 17.

''Ram Lalla is barely a five-year-old child.....it is not proper to keep him awake for such a long time...it is also not in accordance with the tenets of the scriptures and shastras,'' said an Ayodhya based seer on Thursday.

Another seer said that Ram Lalla must sleep for a few hours everyday. ''It is not advisable to deny him sleep simply to allow the devotees to have his darshan, we should not only think about the convenience of the devotees. We must also make sure that nothing is done which is not as per the traditions,'' said the seer, who hailed from the Ramanandi sect whose traditions were followed while performing the rituals at the Ram temple.

Champat Rai, secretary of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teeth Khestra Trust, which looks after the Ram temple, said that a decision in this regard would be taken at a meeting of the Trust members on Friday.

At present the Ram Temple remains open for 14 hours a day and over one lakh devotees come for 'darshan' of Ram Lalla daily, the Trust officials said.

All the hotels and homestays in and around Ayodhya are already packed to capacity and the devotees flocking the town on Ram Navami might find it difficult to find a place to stay.