Puri Royal Scion’s Unique Chhera Pahanra Feat: Dibyasingha Deb Scores A Fifty

Puri: Bahuda Yatra on Tuesday marked the 50th year of Gajapati Maharaja Dibyasingha Deb (67) performing the hereditary Chhera Pahanra ritual on the chariots of the deities of Jagannath Temple in Puri. None of his predecessors achieved this rare feat.

Clad in spotless white, Gajapati Maharaja Dibyasingha Deb arrived at the Gundicha Temple in ‘Tamjan’ (a palanquin with a hood) in a procession from his royal palace. He first offered prayers to the sibling deities and then conducted the ritual using a broom with a gold-plated handle after sprinkling water on the chariots. Thereafter, the gods began their homeward journey after a nine-day sojourn at the place of their birth.

Gajapati Maharaja has been performing the service as the first servitor of the deities since 1971.

The ritual is a symbol of the subjugation of the temporal to the spiritual.

Dibyasingha Deb ascended the throne in July 1970, at the age of 17 following the death of his father Gajapati Maharaja Birakishore Deb in the midst of Rath Yatra. He was then pursuing History at St. Stephen’s College in New Delhi.

In these years, he was not able to perform the Gajapati Maharaja Seva (Raja Niti and Chhera Pahanra) only once in 1976 when he was in the USA for his LLM course, the sources added.

In his absence, his official representative (mudirasta, a minor servitor) performs the king’s seva. On June 24, the mudirasta servitor performed Chhera Pahanra ritual on Snan Mandap (bathing platform) in the Jagannath Temple.