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Home , Mayapur, Nilachal

Orissa Review June - 2004

Lord in Mayapur

Prof. Rajkishore Mishra

here is a beautiful temple at Mayapur in Ganguly of Rajapur in Mayapur. Sri Ganguly Tthe of Bengal where the was contemporaneous to Sri Chaitanya. He images of Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra and used to visit during the Car Festival every are enshrined. The temple complex year and feel happy in the company of Sri was under the private ownership of one Sphatik Chaitanya there. It may be mentioned here that Chatterjee who died in Sri Chaitanya had spent 1987. almost eighteen years in Mr Chatterjee had Puri between 1509 and seven daughters. The 1533 A.D. youngest one was Gauri. Sri Ganguly became She was once playing old and infirm. He became under a big banyan tree blind and "because of that near her house. Just he was deprived of having beneath the tree there was the good fortune to take a big ant-hill. Gauri, part in the Lord's Chariot hardly five-year-old, while playing there used Festival in Sri Jagannath-Puri to have the to hear a voice which was asking her for food association of Sri who and water. The little lass was baffled. When it was living there at that time. Blaming his own continued repeatedly, she had to tell it to her misfortune he cried very ardently and decided father. Her father, Sphatik Chatterjee in consultation with some old inhabitants of the to give up his life." Srimant Dwip came to know about Lord An ardent devotee's sincere prayer never Jagannath's secret sojourn in a hide-out goes unheard. Sri Jagannath in Puri became somewhere there during the attack of concerned. "That night he appeared in the Raktavahu. The sabaras brought Lord Jagannath dream of Jagadish Ganguly to console him. He to Nadia-Navadwip and had probably deposed assured him that he would manifest his deity him there which is then hidden under an ant- to accept his service. He told him - Tomorrow hill. early in the morning while you will be taking Mr Chatterjee also heard another bath in the , a big log will come floating anecdote about an old devotee, Jagadish and touch your body. Then you should take that

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log to a leper- leprosy respectively. Finally the images took carpenter who shape and were installed. It is said Sphatik lives in a Chatterjee could retrieve these images from nearby underneath the banyan tree of his garden. He village, and used to worship them and around eight years get my deity before his death, he transferred the deities to carved by him the care of ISKCON in 1979. and install it. There is a long pavilion before the You should Jagannath Temple of Mayapuri. It contains a worship that number of small chambers. In the seven deity considering him non-different from the adjacent chambers the entire story of Jagadish master of the Nilachal Dham." Ganguly, the leper-carpenter, the carving of Lo ! next morning when Jagadish was images, the appearance of the deities, the six- taking bath in the Ganges, he could feel armed manifestation of Sri Chaitanya are something was touching him frequently in the carved with English sub-titles. The Jagannath water. He was blind, but remembering the - consciousness was not previous night's dream, he managed to have a confined to the populace grip over the floating piece of wood. It was of any particular daru, the sacred Log. He felt terribly excited. geographical region. It Then Sri Ganguly made a serious search has equal bearing on all for a carpenter infested with leprosy in the sorts of people near-by village. Fortunately, in the present irrespective of caste, Baun Pukur Bazar at Mayapur he could trace a creed or community. The middle-aged carpenter, who was seriously above-mentioned story is afflicted with leprosy. one of the illuminations of an ardent soul that craves At the strange request of Ganguly the for an unisive experience with the Divine. carpenter hesitated in the beginning. His hands were crippled. Besides, he felt that a leper The story of a floating Daru in the should refrain himself from carving a divine Ganges reminds us of a Telugu chronicle which image. Ganguly persuaded him to fulfil the narrates the floating of a four-branched tree divine ordeal. The leper finally agreed and which came floating from the Dwaraka sea- painfully started his work. It was causing him shore across the Arabian Sea to the Bay of excruciating pain. The blind devotee was giving Bengal which was retrieved by . him company while the carving was in A dream episode was also interspersed in the progress. He used to guide the carpenter from narrative. his own reminiscences as to how the trinity would look like ! With the gradual progress of the work, Jagadish Ganguly and the leper-carpenter were Prof. Rajkishore Mishra lives at N1/27A, IRC Village, slowly recovering from loss of vision and Bhubaneswar.

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