Hummingbird News Desk
KRISHNAGAR, 24 JUNE: The annual Snan Yatra festival of Lord Jagannath, Baladev, Subhadra was performed in a low key affair at the global headquarters of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) Mayapur Nadia today.
Each year the traditional Jagannath temple at Rajapur in Mayapur used to draw close to 50000 devotees, pilgrims and visitors on the occasion of Snan Yatra, however this year following the government protocol the temple management decided to not organise on a large scale said Nirmal Chaitanya Dasa, temple authority.
The main big deities were not taken out to the Snan Bhedi for bathing only the small Utsav deities of the three Lords were bathed inside the temple using honey, ghee, milk, fruit juices, Ganga water, yogurt, and butter by senior monks and few brahmacharis.
The community devotees, who were not able to visit the temple at Rajapur, were happy watching the festival proceedings via online platforms. “Around a lakh people watched the festival virtually from all across the world” informed Subroto Dasa, Media Communications Head of ISKCON Mayapur.
Few devotees who performed the bathing ceremony of the deities wore masks, got sanitized and underwent thermal scanning.
Snan Yatra is celebrated as the appearance day of Lord Jagannath in the material world and hence post the bathing festival a huge birthday cake was offered to the Lord. According to Skanda Purana when King Indradyumna installed the wooden deities in Puri he arranged this bathing ceremony. Held on the full-moon day of the month of Jyestha, this festival is also simultaneously held as an important festival in Puri.
As per established scriptures post the Snan Yatra, Jagannath catches cold and He does not give darshan for next 14days, this could be equated in modern age as a quarantine period. On the 14th day He comes out to visit His aunt’s place, popularly celebrated as Jagannath Rath Yatra.
Feature Image : Gaja besh darshan of Lord Jagannath, Baladev, Subhadra. After Snan The Lord is worshipped in Gaja besh.