Newspaper: Bhakti Movement Still Popular in Orissa

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

The following article was printed in the Asian Age newspaper (May 5, 2003).

 

Bhakti Movement Still Popular in Orissa

By Akshaya Kumar Sahoo

 

Bhubaneswar, May 5: Sri Chaitanya, the famous medieval Vaishnav saint, perhaps would have been very happy had he lived up to this age to see that the Bhakti cult he preached is still being practiced with great fervor by his followers in Orissa.

 

The annual sankirtan yatra introduced by Chaitanya on Akshaya Trutiya day to mark the birth day of the 12th century Sanskrit poet Sri Jayadev, composer of Gita Govinda, is religiously being observed this year in the state with devotees from different parts of the country taking part in it. History records that Sri Chaitanya, who along with Kabir and Guru Nanak flourished as a great religious leader in the early 16th century, had visited Orissa by leading a huge procession of followers. On the day of Akshaya Trutiya, the extra-ordinary champion of Bhakti movement, was joined by pancha sakhas (five great saints) of Orissa.

 

On that auspicious day, Sri Chaitanya, the pancha sadshas and their innumerable followers - after taking holy dip in Bindu Sagar - a sacred pond in front of Anant Vasudev temple in Bhubaneswar, left for Puri via Kenduli village, the birth place of great Sanskrit poet Jayadev and offered prayer to Madhav, the presiding deity of the village.

 

The historical event of Sri Chaitanya's sankirtan yatra could not have been recreated in a more appropriated manner as it was done on Sunday when over two hundred devotees dressed in the attires of the medieval saint and his followers thronged Anant Vasudev temple and after offering prayer and marched in a procession singing praise in favour of Lord Krishna.

 

The atmosphere was highly charged with sounds of devotional song and musical instruments resounding the blue sky.

 

Sri Chaitanya's followers in the 16th century, apart from common people, included landlords and persons of royal origin. Today also, the same tradition continues. The Gajapati king of Puri, Sri Dibyasingha dev, senior bureaucrats, high-profile intellectuals and political leaders irrespective of their party lines, regularly taking part in the annual sankirtan yatra. Apart from the Gajapati king, Orissa revenue minister Biswa Bhusan Harichandan, senior Congress leader Suresh Kumar Routray, state finance secretary Ajit Kumar Tripathy, vice chancellor of Utkal University of culture Narendra Mishra and a galaxy of other eminent personalities took part in the Sunday's sankirtan yatra.

 

The eminent personalities looked retired from their nobility and aristocracy and lost themselves in the ecstasy of melody of devotion. As the sankirtan troupe moved on, hundreds of villagers joined it on the way and by the time it reached Kunduli, the number of devotees had increased to over 10,000. Poet Jayadev, who produced the immortal piece of Gita Govinda, was a worthy successor of Sriharsha.