Puri: The ceremonial bathing ritual of the Trinity of Jagannath temple was held amidst tight security on Saturday. The divine trinity – Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra, and Sudarshan—bathed in 108 bowls of fragrant water. The Deva Snana Purnima ritual was started at 4:30 am.
More than three lakh devotees witnessed the Snana ritual which started at around 4.30 am with the Daita servitors escorting lord Jagannath, elder brother lord Balabhdra and sister Devi Subhadra along with Sudarshan and Madanmohan to Snana Mandap from ‘Ratnasimhasan’ of the sanctum sanctorum in ‘Dhadi pahandi’.
The ‘Chaturdha Murti’ were placed on the Snana Mandap overlooking the Grand Road facing East and located at the outer complex of the temple. Priests bathed the deities in 108 pitchers of aromatic water drawn from ‘Sunakua’ (golden well) and blended it with aromatic herbs, sandalwood paste, kesar and karpur for bathing.
As per tradition, 35 pots of water are used for the bathing of Lord Jagannath, 33 pots for Lord Balabhadra, 22 for Devi Subhadra and 18 for Lord Sudarshan. The ritual, also known as ‘Jalabhishek’, is performed amid chanting of Vedic mantras, kirtan, beating of gongs and blowing of conch shells.
Gajapati Dibyasingha Deb came in a procession from his palace in a decorated palanquin to the temple and performed ‘Chhera Pahanra’. Prior to this, servitors completed all offerings like bhog and dressing the deities. This was followed by decking of the deities in ‘Hati Besha’ (incarnation of Lord Ganesh).
The devotees had a ‘darshan’ of the deities atop the bathing altar from behind the barricades which continued till late in the night. Later, the ‘Hati Besha’ was undone and Daita servitors escorted the deities into ‘Anasar ghar’ (sick room) where the deities would recline in bed for a fortnight, supposedly suffering from fever. During the sick period, the temple Baidya (physician) would treat them with herbal medicines and put them on fruit diet served by Daita servitors.
Public ‘darshan’ of the deities would remain closed from today till Nabajouban ‘darshan,’ a day prior to the annual Rath Yatra on July 7. During these 15 days, the Lord manifests in Alarnath Deb, at a temple about 23 km from here at Brahmagiri.
As part of the security arrangements, 68 platoons of police were deployed. Scores of intelligence sleuths and CCTV cameras were installed at various places in the temple complex besides regular ones in the city to monitor the crowd movement.
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