The Navaratri celebrations at Mysuru palace began on a traditional note on Wednesday and brought alive a time-honoured cultural practice being observed by the Wadiyars without break since 1610.
In a throwback to the past, the Khas Durbar preceded by various rites and rituals was conducted by the titular king Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar.
Notwithstanding the abolition of royalty and the institution of the Maharajas, the Wadiyars of Mysuru have kept alive certain practices of Navaratri such as conducting durbar, and it all unfolded before a select audience on Wednesday.
The cynosure of all eyes was Yaduveer, clad in princely attire and participating in the elaborate rituals and rites supervised by a battery of priests. While Dasara as celebrated by the State government is a fulcrum to promote tourism, and is called ‘Naada Habba’ or people’s festival, the Wadiyars have not diluted the religious aspects associated with Navaratri.
Hence, rituals complete with changing of vedic hymns, performance of puja, and offering prayers constitute the core of the celebrations. This was followed by the holding of durbar during which Yaduveer, accompanied by a retinue of palace officials and family members from the Wadiyar clan, entered the Amba Vilas section of the palace and ascended the golden throne placed in an octagonal-shaped hall.
He received blessings from the priests and was also offered ‘prasada’ from various temples in and around Mysuru. While the durbar held special significance before Independence, it is only symbolic now and is conducted during Dasara.
Around the same time, a procession with caparisoned ‘pattada aane’, or ‘State elephant’, ‘State cow’ and ‘State horse’, was taken out to the main temples in the palace fort. The sequence of events that unfolds daily in the palace but the durbar is conducted only once in the evening on the remaining days of the festivities.
The Dasara celebrations, which have been on for centuries, reached their zenith during the regime of Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV (1902-1940). The Dasara murals rendered by various artists and exhibited in the Kalyana Mantapa of the palace give an accurate depiction of the traditions of the time, and they are followed even today.