Thousands throng Grand Road in Odisha's Baripada to celebrate Deba Snana Purnima

BARIPADA: Thousands of devotees thronged the Grand Road here to witness Deba Snana Purnima of the Trinity on Monday.

Braving the hot and humid weather, the devotees, including those from neighbouring West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar, gathered outside Haribaldev Jew shrine at Baripada, popularly known as the second Srikhetra, to catch a glimpse of the deities.

Kameswar Tripathy, a priest of the temple, said the rituals of ‘mangala alati’ and ‘gutipahandi’ were carried out by 12 servitors early in the morning.

The Trinity along with Madanmohan, Sudarshan and Anga Laxmi were escorted out of the sanctum sanctorum in a ceremonial ‘pahandi’ to the bathing altar (snana bedi) located at the outer complex of the shrine.

Then the deities were bathed with 108 pitchers of coconut water and as many pitchers of aromatic water at ‘snana mandap’. 

The ‘abakash’ rituals were performed at 8.30 am and ‘balya bhoga’ and ‘anna bhoga’ offered to the deities. After ‘sandhya alati’ in the evening, the deities were dressed in ‘Gaja Besha’.

The district administration has deployed three platoons of police force in the town to maintain law and order during the event.

This apart, police personnel were also deployed inside the temple premises, said Additional SP Abhimanyu Nayak. 

Similar rush of devotees was witnessed at Jagannath temples at Nilagiri, Baliapal, Jaleswar, Soro and Balasore.