Puri temple urges PM, President to stop ISKCON’s Rath Yatra

The Gajapati Maharaja and chairman of Shree Jagannath Temple Managing Committee (SJTMC), Dibyasingha Deb, has written to President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking their intervention to stop ISKCON from holding untimely ‘Snan Yatra’ and Rath Yatra of Lord Jagannath across the globe by deviating from the age-old tradition and hurting the religious sentiments of millions of devotees. Deb, the titular king of Puri, said, “Despite several requests, ISKCON have been deviating from the norms in sacred scriptures and century-old tradition while conducting festivals of Lord Jagannath.”

The Shree Jagannath Temple Managing Committee (SJTMC) is the highest policy-making body of the 12th-century shrine in Odisha’s Puri.

In a letter to the President and Prime Minister on July 4, Deb said, “I wish to submit here that over the last almost two decades, consistent efforts on the part of Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (Puri) to resolve this vital issue, as well as public statements in that regard issued by the Odisha Government from time to time, have failed to stop the untimely Shree Jagannath Yatras performed by ISKCON in countries outside India.”

Deb, who is also considered as the first servitor of Lord Jagannath further said that under the aforesaid circumstances and in order to preserve the sanctity of the glorious tradition of Lord Jagannath around the world and in deference to the religious sentiments of countless devotees in India and abroad, he once again appealed to the Prime Minister to initiate appropriate steps so as to stop the performance of untimely snana-yatra and rath yatra being organised by ISKCON in violation of sacred scriptures and tradition.

Earlier, Deb had written a letter to Prime Minister and President Murmu.

“Therefore, the SJTMC has decided to send a delegation to Delhi, which will meet both the President and the Prime Minister and apprise them of the significance of preserving the sanctity of Shree Jagannath culture,” said Prof Harekrushna Satpathy, a research scholar on Shree Jagannath culture.