Banakalagi Ritual Of Lord Jagannath & Siblings In Odisha’s Puri To Resume Next Week!

Puri: After a gap of over a month, Banakalagi ritual of the sibling deities at Jagannath Temple in Odisha’s Puri town will resume on August 9, the shrine administration informed on Tuesday.

According to source, the once-a-week facial will not be performed on August 2 since some special rituals are scheduled for the day.

The Banakalagi ritual was disrupted at Srimandir and had not been conducted since Niladri Bije (June 1), when the sibling deities returned to the sanctum sanctorum after the annual Rath Yatra, following a dispute between the servitors of Dutta Mohapatra Nijog and Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) over the day it should be performed.

According to Srimandir Record of Rights, the ritual should be held at least four times a month. The Dutta Mohapatra Nijog, however, was pressing hard to reschedule the ritual to Thursday, while the SJTA was keen on having it on Wednesdays as had been the case since a consensus was reached on it in 2018.

On July 21, the SJTA also issued a show-cause notice under Sections 20 and 30 of Shri Jagannath Temple Act to the Nijog, seeking an explanation on why they were not performing the ritual.

As the deadlock continued, the NITI sub-committee was convened here on July 28 to examine and resolve the issue. SJTA chief administrator Rajan Kumar Das had then said that the views put forth in the meeting will be submitted during the meeting of the temple managing committee on August 1 since it is the highest decision-making authority.

Earlier in the day, it was, however, reported that he management committee meeting has been cancelled and letters served to the members mentioned no particular reason for the postponement.

Banakalagi is performed using ‘kasturi’, ‘harital’, ‘karpura’, ‘kesar’, ‘kalasankha’ and ‘dhalasankha’. During the ritual, the darshan of the deities remains suspended for four hours.