Puri: Puri Gajapati Maharaj Dibyasingh Deb, accompanied by queen Lilabati Pattamahadei, eldest daughter and grandson, Monday visited the lord Jagannath temple here and offered prayers to the deities.
On this occasion, Gajapati interacted with the media and said they had offered prayers to the deities in this holy Odia month of Kartik. He also wished devotees a hassle-free darshan of the deities and safe return during this month.
On queue system for darshan, he said it is for the sake of the devotees only. The state government and the temple administration will come up with a well-designed system. There is the Supreme Court’s direction regarding devotees’ peaceful and disciplined darshan of the deities. “And I hope the state government with active cooperation of the temple administration, district administration, police administration and servitors will make it a success,” he said.
The royal members reached the south gate at 6.40 am. Debiprasad Rajguru, the royal guru, was also along with them. Niti (Ritual) administrator Pradeep Kumar Das and commander welcomed them and took them inside the shrine.
They first offered prayers to Bata Ganesh. Then they entered ‘Nata Mandap’ after having darshan of ‘Bata Mangala’ and ‘Pancha Mahadev’. They had darshan of Lord Jagannath from behind ‘Garuda Stamba’. Later, while their daughter and grandson had darshan from near the ‘Bhitara Kath’, Gajapati and queen went into the sanctum sanctorum, had darshan of the trinity, offered ‘Pranami’ before doing rounds of ‘Ratna Singhashan’.
Thereafter the rajguru gave ‘Prasad Mala’ and offered Chandan, received from Bhandar Mekaps, to the king. The king then prayed to Bhandar Lokanath. He also took stock of Jagamohan’s condition and discussed with the officials of the temple administration about its present condition.
After coming out through ‘Beheran Dwar’, the royal couple visited Adi Nrushingha, Bimala, Kanapata Hanuman, Bhubaneswari, Mahalaxmi temples.
The king and the queen spent some time sitting and reciting mantras at Jagamohan of Mahalaxmi temple. Thereafter they had darshan of ‘Naba Grahas’ and ‘Neel Chakra’ at ‘Pata Agana’.
After spending about one hour inside the temple premises, they finally came out of the temple through the south gate after having darshan of ‘Satya Naarayan’ and bowing down to Bata Ganesh.
PNN