Row over Rath Yatra abroad: After Puri royal’s latest salvo, ISKCON ‘bows out of discussion’
Days after Shree Jagannath Temple Managing Committee chairman and head of Puri’s erstwhile royal family, Gajapati Dibyasingha Deb, called plans for Lord Jagannath Rath Yatra abroad “untimely”, ISKCON, which has planned these yatras, said it was “bowing out of this discussion”.
Responding to Deb’s letter to him, Madhusevita Dasa, chairperson of ISKCON’s Governing Body Commission at Mayapur in West Bengal, said, “There is no more to add, and therefore we respectfully bow out of this discussion once and for all.” Dasa conveyed this in a mail sent to Deb.
On July 4, Deb said that celebrations of the Snana Yatra and Ratha Yatra, in “contravention of holy scriptures and well-established tradition”, were hurting the religious sentiments of countless devotees around the world.
According to tradition, the annual Rath Yatra is held on the second day of the Odia month of Ashadha Shukla Tithi, when Lord Jagannath, along with his siblings Lord Balabhadra and Goddess Subhadra, travels from the 12th-century Jagannath Temple in Puri to the Gundicha Temple.
To end the impasse over the Rath Yatra in foreign countries, multiple rounds of deliberations were held between scholars of the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) and ISKCON.
Deb had also sought the intervention of President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the matter.
‘As per the shastras’
Meanwhile, ISKCON said during the scholars’ meet, it was proved through scriptures and puranas that the ISKCON Rath Yatra festivals were fully permitted and that they were as per the shastras.
“The whole purpose of Rath Yatra, as per the shastras, is Lord Jagannath, the Lord of the whole world, coming out to shower his blessings on anyone and everyone. ISKCON has carried that spirit all over the world for almost 60 years by spreading Jagannath culture, not just in India, but in more than 100 countries where Hinduism hardly exists,” said an ISKCON spokesperson.
The ISKCON spokesperson said its Rath Yatra festival had been well received by the Indian diaspora globally. “It is very important to understand the purpose, spirit and mood of Rath Yatra, which is actually to make people become devotees of Lord Jagannath and serve him. ISKCON has done this service of making lakhs of people Jagannath bhakta from America, Russia, Africa and South America,” he added.
