BHUBANESWAR: Devotees will once again be deprived of watching from a close distance the opulence of Lords Jagannath, Balabhadra and Goddess Subhadra in Suna Besha (dressed in golden finery) in Puri, on Wednesday.
Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, the district administration has decided to impose a curfew on the pilgrim town to prevent public gathering when the deities appear in all their glory.
According to tradition, the trinity who returned from the Gundicha or Mausi Maa Temple (their birthplace) marking Bahuda Yatra on Tuesday, will don huge quantities of gold ornaments atop their chariots the next day.
Suna Besha is a major ritual of the Rath Yatra, which started last week on July 12. The Jagannath Temple witnesses Suna Besha on four other occasions in a year — Dusshera, Kartika Purnima, Pausa Purnima and Dola Purnima. While the rituals are observed inside the temple at other times, during the Bahuda Yatra the Suna Besha ritual is performed on the chariots outside the temple.
“Legend has it that Suna Besha was introduced during the era of King Kapilendra Deb in 1460. He had conquered another king and looted huge quantities of gold from him, which he had brought back to Puri on 16 elephants. He had donated all the gold to the Jagannath Temple,” a temple official said.
Police have stepped up security to protect the gold. “We have made adequate security arrangements for a smooth Suna Besha on Wednesday. We request devotees to stay in their homes and watch Suna Besha live on their TV screens or mobile phones,” Puri SP Kanwar Vishal Singh said.
The temple administration, quoting a 1978 inventory, said nearly 128kg of gold ornaments and 221kg of silver utensils are present in the shrine’s Ratna Bhandar (treasury), which has an inner and outer chamber. However, no valuation of the listed jewellery of the temple has been made so far.
The Jagannath Temple has so far received around 21kg gold, including jewellery and 280kg silver from worshippers and other donors. A few days ago, a devotee donated nearly 4.9kg gold ornaments worth more than Rs 2.3 crore to the Puri Jagannath Temple, which was the biggest one-time gold donation by a man on any given day to the temple in the last two decades.
