Puri: Pahandi Bije ritual concluded Thursday with Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Devi Subhadra ceremonially seated atop their respective chariots — Nandighosa, Taladhwaja and Darpadalana — ahead of their annual journey to the Gundicha Temple.
Amid the beating of gongs and the blowing of conches and cymbals, Chakraraj Sudarshan was first taken out from the main temple and seated at the Darpadalana chariot of Devi Subhadra.
Shree Sudarshan is the wheel weapon of Lord Vishnu, who is worshipped in the form of Lord Jagannath in Puri, said Pandit Suryanaray Rathsharma.
The idol of Lord Balabhadra, the elder brother of Lord Jagannath, was also in the ceremonial procession to his Taladhwaja chariot.
In a special procession called Sunya Pahandi (the Goddess looking at the sky while being carried to the chariot) by servitors, the idol of Goddess Subhadra, the sister of Lord Jagannath and Lord Balabhadra, was brought to her chariot.
When finally the idol of Lord Jagannath was taken out of the temple, emotions spilt over the Grand Road as devotees raised their hands and started chanting the ‘Jai Jagannath’ slogan.
Odissi dancers, folk artistes and cultural troupes performed before the ‘Kalia Thakura’.
In the Pahandi ritual, the idols of the sibling deities are brought in ceremonial processions to their respective chariots, parked in front of the Lion’s Gate of the temple, for a journey to Shree Gundicha Temple, considered the birthplace of the deities, about 2.6 kilometres from the 12th-century shrine here.
According to the temple administration, the processions of the deities started at 9 am.
Special arrangements have been made to drain out rainwater from the Grand Road and facilitate a smooth procession, as devotees will pull the chariots of Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Devi Subhadra along the thoroughfare from the shrine to the Shree Gundicha Temple.
Devotees will begin pulling the chariots at 4 pm after the traditional chariot sweeping by Puri’s titular king Gajapati Maharaja Dibyasingha Deb and Puri Shankaracharya Swami Nischalananda Saraswati’s visit, a temple official said.
The temple town has been blanketed by a multi-layered security cover with the deployment of around 13,000 personnel from the state police, central forces, Indian Navy and Coast Guard, while special focus is on crowd control, traffic management and emergency response, the officials said.
The administration has made elaborate security arrangements to prevent any untoward incident and taken steps to tackle waterlogging along the route that the chariots will take.
Puri received a staggering 143.8 mm of rain on the eve of the iconic chariot festival, and the weather department issued a warning for downpour and thunderstorms for Thursday.
Special arrangements have been made to drain out rainwater from the Grand Road and facilitate a smooth procession, as devotees will pull the chariots of Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Devi Subhadra along the thoroughfare from the 12th-century shrine to the Shree Gundicha temple, around 2.6 km away.