Sri Gaurpurima Festival 6-03-2004 at Sri Mayapur Dham

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Dear Devotees:

 

Please accept my most humble obeiscances & All glories to Srila Prabhupada

 

On this most auspicious appearance day of the Most Munificent Avatar Sri

Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu (06-03-2004) we are having a large variety of

festivities in Sri Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir at Sri Mayapur Dham, with

thousands of devotees from all over the world as well as with tens of

thousands of pilgrims from different parts of India and basicaly from the

State of West Bengal.

 

All the devotees were as usual eagerly waiting to take darsan from Their

Lordhsips Sri Sri Radha Madhava during darsan arati thinking, what would be

the new outfit for this magnanimous ocassion? For each important festival

like Gaurpurnima, Janmastami, Radhastami etc. a new design of dresses is

offered to The Deities and becomes one of the most important attractions for

our devotees on that day since they spend a lot of time commenting about the

opulences of Sri Sri Rahda Madhava Asta-sakhis. For this Gaurpurnima year

the dresses of Their Lordships are very colourful with a lot of embroidery

and fine art work made at The Sri Radha Madhava dress department in Mayapur

under the guidance of HG Jananivas prabhu. ( please see attached pictures)

 

This year is the first year of the Gaurpurnima for the New life size Panca

Tattva Deities that were installed last Feb 23rd who everyday look more

beautiful and attractive to all the devotees and visitors, the temple rooms

are not big enough to accomodate thousands of pilgrims at the same time. For

this year special security measures have been taken for the safety of the

devotees in general.

 

There are kirtas and bhajans everywhere, the chanting of Hare Krsna can be

heard in every corner of the temple, gardens etc. as well as from each

visitor who sees every devotee chant Hare Krsna.

 

Many pandal programs are going on simultaneaously in different languages

like Bangla- Hindi - English & Russian.

 

For today's program we had in the morning after the dharsan arati and the

Gurupuja to Srila Prabhupada a very long Srimad Bhagavatam lecture related

to today's topic (the appearance of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu.)

 

The lectures were from many senior devotees that was delivered on a rotating

basis where Their Holinesses Jayaptaka Swami and Bhakti Caru Swami gave

lectures from 9:00 am till 12 noon in English, Bengali and Russian in 3

different pandals while HH Lokanath Swami gave lecture in Hindi and HH

Bhakti Purusotam swami gave in English and Bengali. HH Mahavishnu Swami gave

lectures for the Russian devotees.

 

A free prasadam distribution is going on for the whole day in a groups of

1500 at the same time and expecting to distribute more than 50000 of plates

of prasadam for today's blissful occasion.

 

>From 12 noon there are many initiation ceremonies going on from different

Spiritual masters in the main pandal at the Lotus park.

 

Today HH Bhakti Swarup Damodara Swami awarded the Sanyasa order to 2 of His

disciples, ( Subhas Candra das now is Svayambhu Swami Maharaja and

Birkrishna das now is Bhaktivyasa Swami Maharaja) as well as to other

aspirant disciples. Other Spirital Masters are also giving initiations today

like Their Holinesses Lokanath Swami, Bhakti Vikas Swami, Mahavishnu Swami,

Subhag Swami and at the end HH Jayapataka Swami gave initiations to various

devotees from India and other countries.( please see attached pics)

 

A variety of Kirtans and dramas are scheduled from 2 pm.

 

At 4:00 pm the Mahabisheka will starts in Srila Prabhupada Park in front of

the lotus building so that many can have the opportunity to perform

abhisheka to Lord Gauranga

 

At 6:30 pm will be the lamp offering of the Dieties in the temple and at

7:00 pm will be the Anukalpa prasad. ( today devoees observe Ekadasi) and at

8:00 pm the English stage prgram will start with a big variety of

performances by the devotees from diferent parts of the world.

 

At 7:00 pm HH Jayapataka Swami offers Ekadasi prasad to Srila Prabhupada's

disciples in the roof top of the Lotus building.

 

we will be sending reports during the whole day

 

ys

 

tmkd