Ahmedabad: The traditional Jal-Yatra (Kalash Yatra) held over a fortnight before the famous Rath Yatra of historic Lord Jagannath temple here was organized today marking the ‘symbolic’ departure of the three main deities to their Mosal (uncle’s place).

A colourful procession with over a dozen elephants was taken out from the temple in Jamalpur area of the city to Somnath Bhudhar na ghat of river Sabarmati where main preist Mahant Dilip Das along with Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, Mayor Gautam Shah performed Ganga-Pujan (worship of the river) ritual on a boat and then river water was filled in 108 urns and taken back to the temple for special jalabhishek (water pouring ritual) called ‘Jyeshthabhishek’.

Manant Das said that as the ritual was done on the full moon day of the Jyeshtha month, it was called jyeshthabhishek. After that the main deity lord Jagannath, his elder brother Balbhadra and sister Subhadra were decorated in a special manner to give them the form of lord Ganesha to perform Gajvesh puja.

‘From today, till 15 days the deities are deemed to have gone to Mosan (uncle’s place at Saraspur) and don’t give darshan,’ he said.
The 140 th rathyatra this year is to be held on June 25 the Ashadi beej as per Gujarati calendar.

Apart from 14 decorated elephants, 501 people with colourful flags, 51 with silver sticks and umbrella and chanvar (old time fan) were also included in the Jal Yatra procession which reached Sommnath Bhudhar Ghat. 1008 women holding urns on their heads were also part of the procession.

DeshGujarat