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Showing posts from March 25, 2007


Maharani of Puri to visit Jagannath Temple after 40 years

On April 8, 2007 , Maharani of Puri will be visiting the Puri Jagannath Temple after 40 years. She is not arriving from any far off place instead she lives 500 meters from the temple. To uphold an ongoing tradition, she has not visited the temple since becoming the queen. Maharani Lilabati Pattamahadei, wife of Gajapati Maharaja Dibyasingha Deb, is upholding a practice which says that the queen should only visit the shrine once in her lifetime. The last Maharani offered prayers in 1966. Nobody insists that the queen should follow the tradition but it is still continued. Record of Rights (RoR) of the Jagannath Temple has written rules on how the queen should be welcomed inside the temple. According to this report in the Indian Express Sources said the maharani of Puri is the only woman on this earth who has the right to worship inside the sanctum sanctorum of the Jagannath temple. "This privilege is bestowed upon the Maharani because her