Puri temple servitors protest, deities go hungry

The deities of the revered Puri Jagannath temple faced an unusual delay in receiving their morning bhog on Friday, as a strike by temple servitors disrupted the customary routine.

Typically, the deities are offered their first meal at 8:30 am, but on this day, hunger pangs continued until 5:30 pm. This disruption arose from a protest by servitors in response to a priest's controversial entry into the shrine for conducting rituals, despite a ban imposed on him due to his alleged inter-caste marriage in 2017, according to a report in the Times of India.



While the strike impacted the scheduled rituals, the temple's public darshan remained unaffected. However, efforts by the temple administration to pacify the servitors proved unsuccessful throughout the day. Eventually, the administration agreed to proceed with the cleansing ritual, which took place around 2:10 pm. Subsequently, rituals resumed at approximately 2:20 pm, and the deities were finally offered their breakfast at 5:30 pm.

Ranjan Das, the chief administrator of the temple, expressed the administration's intention to take action against those responsible for the disruption.

In response to the allegations against him, Singhari, the priest at the center of the controversy, denied any wrongdoing and claimed that he had conducted rituals at the temple in the previous year as well.

Earlier this month, TOI reported that the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) has decided to reintroduce the ticketed (parimanik) darshan system that was discontinued seven years ago.

Quoting sources in SJTA, the Times of India had claimed that the existing free darshan system will remain unaffected. "The ticketed darshan will be scheduled for a few hours every day. Price of tickets and timing of the special darshan facility will be finalised soon," sources told TOI.

The SJTA used to charge Rs 50 for special or parimanik darshan of the deities inside the sanctum sanctorum (garbha gruha). It was stopped following a ban on the access of pilgrims into the sanctum sanctorum during the repair of the Jagamohan in January 2016. Devotees have since been catching a glimpse of the deities free of cost by standing at "bahara" and "bhitara katha" areas (at a distance from the garbha gruha).

However, another temple official said that the devotees would not be allowed inside the garbha gruha for the parimanik darshan as it would affect the daily rituals. Instead, parimanik ticket holders might be allowed to stand at bhitara katha area which is about 30 ft away from the garbha gruha.

At least 50,000 pilgrims visit Jagannath Temple on normal days while the footfall becomes almost double on festive occasions.