Lord Jagannath’s Bahuda Yatra in Puri tomorrow

The stage is all set for the Bahuda Yatra, the homecoming of the Lord Jagannath and his siblings- Devi Subhadra and Lord Balabhadra in Puri on Wednesday (tomorrow). The deities will return in their respective grand chariots which will be pulled by devotees from Gundicha temple to Srimandir.

The return journey of the deities is popularly called the 'Bahuda Yatra'. Elaborate arrangements have been made for the smooth conduct of the Bahuda Yatra which marks the end of the nine-day sojourn of the deities.

As per tradition, the deities will be taken out of the Gundicha temple in the traditional Pahandi by the servitors and placed atop their respective gigantic chariots. The Chhera Panhara is scheduled between 2:30 pm and 3 pm and the chariot pulling will start from 4 PM tomorrow.

The Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) is laying emphasis on timely conduct of the rituals, informed sources.

Senior Servitor, Ramchandra Das Mohapatra said, “All the rituals will be completed much before their schedule. A lot of discussion was held at the meeting to ensure that there is no lack of coordination which was witnessed during pulling of chariots on the occasion of Rath Yatra.”

Though the traffic arrangements will be more or less same to what was done during the Rath Yatra, some changes have also been made by the Odisha Police. The Puri SP said that elaborate arrangements have been made for the Bahuda Yatra. Keeping in view the inflow of crowd, we will regulate traffic and parking facilities, he added.

Meanwhile, lakhs of devotees had darshan of the deities at Gundicha temple today. The last darshan of Lord Jagannath and his siblings at the Adapa Mandapa popularly known as the Sandhya Darshan began at 7am today at the Gundicha temple. To streamline various rituals for the Bahuda Yatra, the Sandhya Darshan was allowed only up to 5 pm today.