State foregoes annual Ratha Yatra procession
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, June 20 2023:
Keeping in view of the crisis and volatile situation in the state, Govindajee Temple (Palace Compound) and ISCKON as well as Brahmins in different localities skipped Ratha Yatra for this year on Tuesday.
At Govindajee Temple, only rituals related with Ratha Yatra wer performed in the presence of few devotees who visited Shri Shri Govindajee Temple and offered prayers.
Similarly, ISCKON temple located at Sangaiprou also skipped the main procession and limited the religious festival to mandatory rituals in the temple.
Mention may be made that the festival was also skipped during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The annual Rath Yatra procession with chariots had been a public festival for 200 years.
The Shree Shree Govindaji Temple Board, the apex body that holds the annual Rath Yatra locally known as Kang Chingba, decided against holding any public event, and conducted the basic rituals inside temple premises.
Various religious organisations, including Brahma Sabha and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), also decided not to hold any public procession due to the prevailing situation.
On the occasion of the Rath Yatra, the idols of Lord Ja-gannath and his two siblings - Devi Subhadra and Lord Balabhadra - - are taken out of Shree Shree Govindaji Temple at the palace compound in Imphal and place them on a wooden nearly 30-foot tall chariot, which is then pulled by hundreds of devotees for a ceremonial procession.
In 1780, the celebration first commenced at the royal palace during the rule of Maharaja Bhagyachandra and it became a public annual carnival in 1832 during the reign of Maharaja Gambhir Singh (who ruled the erstwhile princely state from 1825 to 1834) after the Shree Shree Govindaji temple was built.
On the occasion, Manipur Governor Anusuiya Uikey greeted the people.
She said that for the Hindu Meiteis, the festival is celebrated with gaiety on the second day of the fourth lunar month of the Manipuri calendar Engen which falls in late June or early July and lasts for 10 days till Kanglen celebrating Lord Jagannath's journey.
"For many, Kang is a symbol of unity,-brotherhood, and' peace.
Thousands of devotees participate in this yatra and get good fortune by pulling the Lord Jagannath's chariot and be blessed with pleasure and riches.
Let this year's Rath Yatra bring everlasting unity, peace and progress for every household in the state," the Governor said in her message.