Puri: Puri’s Jagannath temple will remain closed for four hours Wednesday evening for a special ritual of the sibling deities, its administration said.
The Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA), in a public notice, said that ‘darshan’ will remain suspended from 6 pm to 10 pm Wednesday for ‘Banakalagi’ ritual.
According to the temple office, Banakalagi, also called ‘Srimukha Sringara’, is a special ritual where the faces of the sibling deities are coloured afresh.
It is traditionally performed by a category of servitors called the ‘Dutta Mohapatra’.
Natural colours prepared from herbs and certain materials, including ‘kasturi’ (musk) and ‘karpura’ (camphor), are used for colouring the faces of idols, a servitor said.
PTI