JAGADDHATRI PUJA FESTIVAL
The most important festival of Chandernagore is Jagadhatri puja observed for four days in the month of November. Very large images of the goddess, which with their stelac measure 25 feet or more in height, are fashioned in traditional style and are elaborately decorated with solapith embellishments (dake saj). About 30 deities are worshipped at different localities of the town, most of them on a community basis. Vast crowds all over the district and beyond visit Chandernagore during the first three days of the puja, their number increasing to lakh or more on the last day when the images are paraded through the city streets with great pomp and grandeur before immersion in the Bhagirathi.
Chandernagore – headquarters of the subdivision of the same name near Hooghly situated immediately to the south of Chinsura. The grand Trunk Road passes through the town, while the main line of the Eastern Railway touches it at the station of the same name.
The name of the place is derived either from Chandan (Sandal wood) of which there was reportedly a large trade here in the past or from Chandra (moon) because of the crescent shaped bend of the Bhagirathi at the place. The latter version appears more probable.
Although Chandernagore has not specially referred to in any of the mediaeval Sanskrit or Bengali texts, Boro, a quarter of the town lying on the bank of the river, appears in Manasamangal of the Bipradas Piplai (A.D 1495) while Digvijayaprakasa, a 16th century Sanskrit text, mentions Khalisani, now on the north of the town, as a very prosperous village (Mahagrama) ruled by a king who belonged to the Dhivara (fisherman) caste. Kavikankan Mukundaram Chakravarti names Gondalpara, presently south eastern part of the town, in connexion with the voyage of the merchant Dhanapati.
He was a devotee of Shiva and it was through Shiva’s grace that Ban Raja had his body made whole. There is a trace of a very old road running through the mauza of Narayanpur which is situated opposite the mauza Rajibpur. Local tradition has it that Aniruddha carried away Usha along this road.
The most renowned temple of the town is the shrine of Borai Chandi at Boro locality which is frequented by many throughout the year. The large Navaratna temple at Goswami Ghat known as Kone Bouer Mandir was built by Gourmani Dasi in 1808. The Prabartak Sangha has recently renovated it and installed the symbol of the Sangha in the sanctum. The temple of Nandadulal with a Dochala porch, one of the finest of its kind in West Bengal, stands in the Lalbagan locality and was built by Dewan Indranarayan Chowdhury in 1739.
The Rathajatra of Jagannath held in the month of Ashed (June – July, Sri Khuntir Utsav performed at the Goswami Ghat in Agrahayana (November – December) and Patbhanga ceremony observed in front of the temple of Borai Chandi in Chaitra (March – April) are other important festival. Fairs are held at Kundu Ghat in the Boro Locality and at Khalisani on the occasion of Dolijatra in the month of Phalgun (February – March) and near Helapukur during Rasjatra in the month of Kartik (October – November).
No comments:
Post a Comment