Puri Srimandir: Banakalagi ritual of Lord Jagannath, siblings to be held tomorrow
The Jagannath Temple in Odisha's Puri town will be closed to devotees for five hours beginning at 6 p.m. on Wednesday for the Banakalagi Niti of the sibiling deities, which will resume in the 12th-century shrine after a month's break.
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Puri: The Jagannath Temple in Odisha's Puri town will be closed to devotees for five hours beginning at 6 p.m. on Wednesday for the Banakalagi Niti of the sibiling deities, which will resume in the 12th-century shrine after a month's break.
The temple will be closed from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. for the special ritual, which will take place after the end of the second Bhoga Mandap ritual, according to the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA).
Banakalagi is performed with the 'kasturi', 'harital', 'karpura', 'kesar', 'kalasankha', and 'dhalasankha' instruments. Darshan of the deities is suspended during the ritual.
Notably, the facial ritual at Srimandir was disrupted and has not been performed since Niladri Bije (June 1), when the sibling deities returned to the sanctum sanctorum after the annual Rath Yatra, due to a disagreement between Dutta Mohapatra Nijog's servitors and the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) over the day it should be performed.
The Temple Managing Committee decided last week that the ritual would be performed twice a month on Wednesdays. "If there are other rituals on a specific Wednesday, the Banakalagi Niti can be held on Thursday," Puri Collector Samarth Verma said on July 4.
He did, however, clarify that STJA will make the decision to postpone the ritual.
