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Bhubaneswar: The temples across the State are decked up for the celebration of Maha Visuba Sankranti and Hindu New Year today. The day is also popularly known as Pana Sankranti when popular traditional beverage ‘Pana’ prepared with bel fruit is distributed among devotees in all temples.
Another significance of the day is release of Odia almanac for the Hindu year. Every Odia collect the book to fix the right day to perform any auspicious event such as marriage, sacred thread, religious festivals and even agriculture. The day is called as Maha Vishuba is due to the change of position in the Sun’s path and is, therefore, observed in mid-April every year.
All temples across the twin cities of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar were seen with a beeline of devotees since morning to have darshan on the beginning of the Odia year. Especially, Panchamukhi Mahaveer temple at Khannagar in Cuttack, which celebrates 99 year today, attracted devotees from city in a large numbers. Similarly, special rituals have been arranged in Puri Jagannath temple on the auspicious day.
As per Hindu Mythology, Prabhat Alati (woship performed during dawn) was completed at the dawn before the rise of sun as Lord Hanuman born at this time, Cuttack Panchamukhi Hanuman Temple servitor said. Similar crowd was also witnessed in the CRP square Hanuman temple and Ram Mandir at Sreya square in Bhubaneswar.
Various cultural programmes including Bhajan Samaroh, Ramayan discourse at different temples have been organised to mark the day. The special attraction of the day is ‘pana’, the drink that replenishes the throats of scorching summer in mid-April.
