Banakalagi Ritual Of Lords Jagannath On Wednesdays, All 4 Gates Not To Be Reopened: Puri Collector

Puri: After a gap of over a month, Banakalagi ritual of the sibling deities at Jagannath Temple in Odisha’s Puri town will resume next week.

“The temple managing committee has decided that the ritual will be conducted twice a month on Wednesdays. In case, there are other rituals on a particular Wednesday, then the Banakalagi Niti can be conducted on Thursday,” Puri Collector Samarth Verma informed on Friday.

He, however, clarified that the decision to postpone the ritual will be taken by Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (STJA).

The Collector further said that North and the South gates of the temple will be reopened only after the completion of the Heritage Corridor Project since there is not enough space for queue management at these entrances to the 12th-century shrine. “Till then, all devotees will be allowed through the East entrance of the temple while locals can enter the shrine both from East and West sides as per the existing system. They will exit from the North gate,” he added.

Notably, the Banakalagi ritual  has 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 SJTA over the day it should be performed. The servitors were 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. However, the meeting was postponed and held at the Niladri Bhakta Niwas in Puri on Friday (August 4).

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