| Temples & Legends of Bengal |
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| Temples& Legends Of India |
EKTESVARA |
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| Every year the
Charak Puja is observed at this shrine with great enthusiasm. The festival, or parab,
commences in the middle of the month of Chaitra. On the fourteenth day before the end of
the month the pat bhakta as the chief devotee is called, shaves and prepares himself to
live the life of an ascetic till the close of the festival. Long before the dawn of the next day, the loud sound of the drum awakens the sleeping inhabitants of the neighborhood and reminds them that the great parab has approached. On this day the pat bhakta is admitted, for the time being, into the order of devotees, and wears the uttariya or sacred thread. Hence forward, he daily takes out from the temple the pat
or sacred seat, consisting of a wooden plank studded with iron nails and having an iron
pillow, and bathes it Clad mostly in coloured clothes, with nothing but coloured napkins to protect their heads and shoulders from the summer sun, these devotees proceed in batches to and from the temple, with baskets of flowers or garlands in their hands, followed by the beating of drums, repeating loudly and fervently the various names of the god Siva. |
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| About Ektesvara | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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