Puri: The Srila Prabhupada’s ISKCON in Bengaluru has said it would hold Rath Yatra across its centres during the nine-day period prescribed by Puri’s Jagannath Temple administration in accordance with the scriptures, diverging from the Mayapur-headquartered ISKCON Group’s stand on the issue.
It also clarified that the Bengaluru-based organisation was a “separate and independent institution” from the other ISKCON Group, which is headquartered in West Bengal’s Mayapur.
This came after The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) rejected the plea of Puri’s Jagannath temple to “reconsider” holding Rath Yatra and other Jagannath festivals on random dates around the globe, and said that it “respectfully bows out of the discussion once and for all”.
Puri’s titular king Gajapati Maharaja Dibyasingha Deb, the chairperson of the Shree Jagannath Temple Managing Committee (SJTMC), has written to President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking their intervention to stop ISKCON, headquartered in West Bengal’s Mayapur, from holding untimely Snan Yatra and Rath Yatra by deviating from the age-old tradition.
In a letter to the SJTMC chairperson, Srila Prabhupada’s ISKCON Group of Temples said, “We will conduct the Ratha Yatra across our centres of the Global Hare Krishna Movement during the nine-day period, as advised by the Moola-Peetha of Sri Jagannatha Temple at Puri. We are also conducting the Snana Yatra rituals on the prescribed tithi.”.
The communication by Madhu Pandit Dasa, the chairperson of the Governing Body Commission of the Bengaluru group, also stated that the organisation’s decision will unite all ‘Sanatanis’ in service to Lord Jagannatha and devotees.
Deb told PTI that ISKCON Bengaluru has clearly supported the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration’s stand in the letter received July 13.
In the letter, the Bengaluru ISKCON clarified that they are known as Srila Prabhupada’s ISKCON in India and abroad.
“We are managing The Akshaya Patra Foundation, the world-renowned NGO which serves nutritious mid-day meals to over 25 lakh children in 16 states and three Union Territories across India every school day,” he said.
The Mayapur-headquartered ISKCON is registered as ISKCON Society in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Dasa said, “We also wish to clarify that our Srila Prabhupada’s ISKCON differs from them on the subject.”
“We have our international spiritual headquarters at Vrindavan Chandrodaya Mandir in Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, and our official headquarters is registered as ISKCON Society in Bangalore, Karnataka. We are a separate and independent institution from the other ISKCON Group, which is headquartered in Mayapur, West Bengal,” the Bengaluru ISKCON said.
The Bengaluru ISKCON Temple’s support to SJTA follows open support by the Mayapur society’s Odisha branch, which stated that they want the Rath Yatra to be held as per the scripture.
ISKCON’s Odisha unit regional secretary Banamali Das said, “On behalf of Odisha ISKCON, we tender an apology from the core of our heart if Gajapati Maharaja was hurt over untimely Rath Yatra carried out abroad by our organisation.”
“We, in Odisha, are conducting Rath Yatra as per the Puri tradition and never deviate from prescribed dates and ‘tithis’.”
He, however, said that Odisha ISKCON has no control over what is happening abroad.
“We conduct Snana Yatra and Rath Yatra on particular days across India. This time, Rath Yatra will be conducted in the UAE on July 16, the day it is observed in India,” Das said.