City-based socio-cultural associations have started gearing up for Rath Yatra festival which will be celebrated on July 14.
As run up to the festival organisations like Iskcon and other temples from where Rath Yatra will be taken out celebrated Snana Utsav or the bathing festival. Iskcon which has started organising Rath Yatra in a massive way in Jamshedpur for the last three years celebrated it at the Sakchi based Dhalbhumgarh Club. The rituals that began at 4 pm witnessed participation from various cross section of the society.
“A blend of religious zeal and passion convert the streets and alleys of the city into a kaleidoscope of colors and gaiety. Festival begins with a huge fanfare of drums and cymbals,” said a devotee.
The bathing festival before the Rath yatra is celebrated on the Purnima (full moon day) of the Hindu month of Jyeshtha. The day holds a great significance as this is the first occasion in the year as per the Hindu calendar, when the deities Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra are brought out from the Jagannath Temple in Puri and taken in a procession to the Snana Bedi. There they are ceremonially bathed and decorated for a public audience with the devotees.
The priests from Iskcon performed Abhishek with ghee on all the three deities- Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra followed by a grand floral decoration at the Dhalbhum Club. It was then kept for 'darshan' by the devotees who also indulged themselves in hymns of Shri Krishna.
This year too, the grand Iskcon Rath Yatra festival with 50 ft tall chariots will start from the Ram Mandir in Bistupur and will culminate at Dhalbhum Club in Sakchi.
Maintaining the rich tradition, the Rath Yatra Committee of Jugsalai is set to organise a grand ‘rath yatra’ during which the lord Jagannath was worshipped with his elder brother Bala-Rama and his sister Subhadra.
“I have been making these chariots since two decades. Though it is a small chariot but still our devotion and passion is no less,” said Manik Mahapatra , a carpenter.
He went on to add that for generations’ they have been preparing the ‘rath’ for the grand occasion. Devotees appreciate the creative work and this is the best reward they receive.
For most of the workers and craftsmen, who have been making the sacred chariot of lord Jagannath through generations, it is a labour of reverence and faith.
The festival is celebrated by pulling out large wooden wheel chariots of lord Jagannath, along with sister Subhadra and brother Balram from the temple through the city’s decorated streets for hours.