Bhubaneswar: Saraswati Puja, also known as Basant Panchami, was celebrated throughout Odisha with much zeal and enthusiasm on Monday.
Beautifully-decorated pandals were erected across state capital Bhubaneswar with hundreds of devotees, particularly children and women, offering puja to the goddess of wisdom and knowledge.
On the auspicious day, students and teachers of Saraswati Sisu Vidya Mandir, Unit-III, celebrated at the school and sought blessings of the goddess.
Special prayers were also organised at other educational institutions in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.
“We celebrated the festival by performing all rituals in a systematic manner and organising cultural programmes on the school premises along with our teachers and guardians of most of the children. Later, sweets were distributed among one and all. Goddess Saraswati is represented in white saree as white is the symbol of peace and it is believed that worshiping Saraswati brings knowledge in one’s life. Basant Panchami also marks the beginning of spring season,” said Elvina, a student of Santanu English Medium School.
The process of making chariots for the annual rath yatra of Lord Jagannath also started in Puri on this auspicious occasion as the 53 logs of timber arrived in the pilgrim town from Nayagarh.
