Hundreds Attend Bathing Festival at Rajapur Temple

This June, devotees at ISKCON Mayapur’s satellite temple of Lord Jagannath in Rajapur, Simantadvipa joyfully celebrated their annual Snana-Yatra festival.

The ancient Snana-Yatra, or “bathing festival” is considered to be the birthday of Lord Jagannath and has been practiced at Jagannath Puri for hundreds of years. On this day, the public are allowed to bathe the deities of Jagannatha, Baladeva, and Subhadra, after which, according to tradition, they become “sick”, and must take medicine and rest until they become rejuvenated enough to be paraded out on the streets in the more widely-known Ratha-yatra festival.

This year, heavy rain could not stop hundreds of ISKCON Mayapur devotees from walking all the way to the Rajapur temple to bathe the deities. “On our way, we fetched water from the Ganges in pots, accompanied by group chanting all the while,” says Mayapur resident Shyamagopika Dasi. “Then we carried the deities to their bathing platform, or Snana Mantap, following the Puri tradition of moving their forms gracefully back and forth as we did so.”

As devotees and locals took turns to bathe Jagannath, his brother Baladeva and sister Subhadra with a variety of sacred ingredients, others provided the perfect soundtrack by singing the maha-mantra throughout the celebration, which lasted several hours. (article continued below)

“Afterwards, we were all given the unique opportunity to see the deities in their exclusive “Hati Vesha” or elephant masks,” Shyamagopika says.

The rather unusual elephant mask tradition is discussed in the Skanda Purana as well as in the Orissan religious text “Niladri Mohadaya.”

As the story goes, Ganapati Bhatta, a scholar and staunch devotee of the elephant god Ganesh, visited Puri during Snana-Yatra. The king of Puri asked Ganapati to accompany him to see Lord Jagannath, but the scholar refused, saying that he wouldn't worship any God other than his Lord Ganesh. When, after much persuasion from the king, he finally did go, he gasped in surprise. Lord Jagannath had taken on an elephantine form, much resembling Ganesh. Since then, it has been tradition to worship Jagannath in this form.

“As usual, it was a wonderful festival,” Shyamagopika concludes. “The celebration came to a close when we were all given delicious sacred food offered to Jagannath, and went back home happy in thoughts of Him.”

The Rajapur Jagannath temple was handed over to ISKCON by its aging priest in 1978, and welcomes respectful visitors.