Tree to Carve Lord Sudarshan for Puri Jagannath Temple Nabakalebara Found at Gadakuntunia Village near Balakati
The tree to carve Lord Sudarshan murti during Nabakalebara
2015 was found at Gadakuntunia Village near Balakati on the outskirts of
Bhubaneswar. Along with Sudarshan, Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Devi
Subhadra are the four important mutis worshipped at Puri Jagannath Temple.
During the Nabakalebara ritual, new murtis are carved and they
replace the existing murtis worshipped in the Puri Jagannath Temple.
The Asian Age reports
Hundreds of devotees on Sunday made a beeline for Gadakuntunia village under Balakati block, on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, where the daru (neem tree) meant to be used for construction of the idol of Lord Sudarshan, one of the four major idols of Sri Jagannath Temple, Puri, is located.
By afternoon, the crowd had swelled to more than a thousand as people from far and wide descended on this nondescript village that has now etched its name into the pantheon of the Cult of Jagannath. Religious fervour ran high as people were seen paying obeisance to the daru by lying prostrate before it.
An old local servitor of the village, who had been worshipping the tree since 1999, said he had a feeling that the tree is meant for the Lord since the time he first came to the village.
“There was nothing in this area except this tree when I had first arrived at the village. Not a single leaf of this huge tree was damaged in the devastating super cyclone in 1999,” he said, tears rolling down his cheeks.