Over 10 lakh devotees witnessed the Sunavesha of the trinity, lord Balabhadra, lord Jagannath and Devi Subhadra, simultaneously on their respective three Raths on Tuesday.
The temple servitors brought huge gold ornaments from the temple treasury to the chariots amid tight security. Three separate sets of dressing artisans took about two hours to dress the deities. Various types of gold ornaments measuring over 100 kg were used to decorate the deities.
Traditional dressers of the deities fix giant feet, hands and insignias like mace, lotus, wheel and conch, besides huge gold tiaras and a number of special necklaces in the vesha. The deities wear big “kundalas”(earrings) in their earlobes, besides chest guards all made of gold. The darshan of the special vesha was continuing while the report was being filed.
As per report, the darshan of the deities would continue till late night. later, the ornaments as per the received inventory would be returned to the temple treasury by the servitors amid tight security. The police had thrown a multi layer security ring comprising several platoons of armed police around the three Raths and temple while the Sunavesha was in progress.
The local residents were subjected to immense difficulty in returning to their homes because of the faulty pilgrim movement arrangement inside the city. The police had blocked almost all the roads and by-lanes those have openings to the Badadanda. The residents were forced to go for circuitous routes and finally had to arrive at the same place with no entry instruction. One way entry was enforced. While the devotees were allowed to enter into the city by NH 203, they were allowed to exit via Puri- Konark/Gop/Nimapara/ Pipili routes.
The 1978 inventory of the lords’ daily use wealth in form of the ornaments reveals that there were 367 items of gold ornaments weighing four quintals of gold and 251 items of silver ornaments weighing 14 quintals. Apart from these, there were precious ornaments studded with diamond, emerald, ruby and other precious stones of rare quality and size. It is learnt that of the total seven vaults of the temple treasury, only one was opened so far and the contents were in use of the deities.