Baidyanath Dham temple: Where Lord Shiva wears crown made by jail inmates

DEOGHAR: Convicts, who are serving jail terms for committing heinous crimes like rape and murder, have been decorating one of the most famous shrines of Lord Shiva every evening for over a century. According to this tradition, inmates of Deoghar jail make a Nag Mukut, a crown,from a variety of flowers. The crown is then taken on foot by a jail guard to the Baidyanath Dham temple a kilometre away. The crown is an indispensable part of the customary evening religious proceedings called ‘shringar’ of the idol. The temple’s doors are closed only after the evening ‘shringar’.
Officials and sepoys of the jail say this unique legacy dates back to 1911 when J W Tailor was the commissioner of Deoghar in Bengal Presidency under the British. “Tailor’s son had taken ill and no doctor in India could cure him. A priest had then suggested that Tailor offers a puja to Baba Baidyanath. He offered the puja and his son was cured,” Deoghar SP Narendra Kumar Singh said.
Tailor then passed an order saying that the floral crowns to the temple would be provided by the jail authorities for the evening rituals. “The tradition has continued ever since,” Singh added.
Rajesh Mandal (name changed), who is serving life term for the murder of his wife, is one of the 10 inmates who prepare the crown every day. “It takes about six hours. The crown’s crest is designed as the head of a serpent,” Mandal said while working on the crown. Every morning, two designated jail guards go out to the town scouting for flowers. The inmates, out of reverence, take a bath and change into fresh clothes at noon before getting to work. The jail management pays each of them Rs 91 as daily wage for the job.
Karma Prasad (name changed), who is also serving a life sentence in an honour killing case, finds solace in the job. “Each day, I see it as an opportunity to wash away my sins and serve the Almighty,” he added.
On Shravan Purnima, the jail inmates prepare two such crowns. “The other one is sent to Basukinath Dham in Dumka amid tight security. We call Baba Basukinath Faujdaari Baba. It is a common belief that Baba Basukinath grants wishes quicker than Baba Baidyanath,” jail superintendent Kumar Chandrashekhar said. It is the only prison in India where such a ritual is observed, he added. The only time the inmates do not prepare the crown is on Shiv Ratri. “Since Shivratri is considered an occasion when Lord Shiva got married, Baba Baidyanath is decked up with a different crown,” a jail staff said. At 4pm every day, the inmates step out of the cell and hand over the tiara to the jail guards after performing an elaborate puja. The crown is then carried to the temple by a jail guard and a panda (priest), who chant ‘Bol Bum’ and ‘Har Har Mahadev’ along the way.