‘Enough is enough’: Puri King again appeals ISKCON to stop untimely Rath Yatra

Bhubaneswar: Amidst the row over the proposed untimely celebrations of Rath Yatra by ISKCON in Houston city of US on November 9, Puri King Gajapati Dibyasingha Deb on Tuesday again appealed to the organisation to abstain from organising the Rath Yatra or any other festival related to Lord Jagannath in violation of the Shastric injunctions.

Addressing the media persons in a press conference here on Tuesday, the Puri King said that the ISKCON, in view of the sentiments of the devotees, didn’t hold the proposed Snana Yatra of the holy triad in Houston on November 3.

He further stated that it however is unfortunate that the organisation has not yet made any announcement regarding cancellation of the plan to conduct the Rath Yatra on November 9. The ISKCON has been making all the preparations to hold the Rath Yatra in Houston on November 9.

The King also informed that not only in Houston, the ISKCON is also going to organise Rath Yatra in Nigeria later this month as well.

“We are in touch with the senior members and Swamijis of ISKCON’s Governing Body Commission (GBC). The governing body of ISKCON is going to hold an important meeting in March where the issue will be raised for discussion,” said Deb.

“We hope that they (ISKCON) will accept our logical views on it (conduct of Rath Yatra as per the Shatric injunctions and tradition) and settle the matter amicably as they also believe in religion, ‘Shastra’ and the rituals. Odia people are very much patient and we have to keep patience for some more time. We have to wait for the GBC meeting scheduled to be held in March this year. If they didn’t accept, ‘enough is enough’. We will take legal recourse then,” he added.

The Puri King said it is not good to break the age-old tradition of the Jagannath Temple.

As per the tradition, the idol of Lord Jagannath and his Holy Siblings should not be taken out of the temple except only on two occasions, the annual Snana Yatra (birth anniversary of Lord Jagannath) and Rath Yatra. It has been mentioned in Skanda Purana and Lord Jagannath himself has given directions in this regard.

He described the untimely Ratha Jatra as a promotional festival, which is not as per the Hindu manuscript. He termed the untimely celebrations of Rath Yatra as the ‘Prachar jatra’ or a promotional festival by the ISKCON which is against our tradition and the Shastras.

ISKCON has been organising untimely Rath Yatras since 1969. The matter has been taken up with the organisation a number of times but to no avail. The ISKCON has stopped organising Rath Yatra in India since 2021 but they are yet to stop the practice across the globe.

–IANS