Puri: Pilgrims in this seaside temple town made a beeline for a darshan of Lord Jagannath and his sibling deities at the Gundicha Temple Sunday, a day after they were brought to the shrine in a culmination of the first phase of Rath Yatra.
The chariots of the three deities reached their destination of Gundicha Temple Friday afternoon, a day after Rath Yatra, and the idols stayed on the carriages overnight as is the tradition.
This was followed by the “Adapa Bije” ritual as Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra, and Devi Subhadra were carried to the temple, considered the birthplace of the deities.
They will stay at the temple till the return car festival of Bahuda Yatra July 24, when the chariots will carry the deities back to the 12th-century Jagannath temple, 2.6 km away.
The three idols have been placed at the ‘Adapa Mandap’ of the Gundicha Temple, and devotees flocked to the shrine for a glimpse of the deities as they believe a ‘darshan’ here brings way more blessings than at the main temple.
Police have made elaborate security arrangements anticipating a multitude of devotees.
“An extensive barricading system has been put in place. The devotees are being allowed entry into the temple through the main gate while the exit is at another gate,” Additional Director General of the state police Soumendra Priyadarshi, who is in overall charge of the Rath Yatra festival, told PTI.
He said the crowd was swelling since it was a Sunday.
“We are extra careful about crowd management. Our primary objective is to facilitate a smooth darshan for all devotees,” the officer said.
A temple official said the deities would be offered the cooked ‘prasad’ after almost 20 days.
The Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) said the Gundicha Temple will remain closed for devotees from 9 pm Sunday to 3 am Monday for a ritual to clean the idols and decorate them.
With the deities on an annual sojourn, the SJTA is all set to conduct a special one-day inventory of the Jagannath Temple’s Ratna Bhandar that was suspended since May 23 due to several rituals, said its chief administrator Arabinda Padhee.
Padhee said that during the special inventory, gold and other valuable ornaments which were removed from the idols for the Snan Yatra would be digitally documented.
The inventory would be carried out as per the standard operating procedure approved by the state government, he said, adding that the inventory of the remaining valuables stored in the inner Ratna Bhandar would be announced later.
