Cuttack: The legend dates back to 1508 when Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was in Odisha. During his stay in Cuttack, Sri Chaitanya advised his disciples for organising Durga Puja and worshipping the Goddess at Balubazar. According to the Binod Bihari puja committee members, the Durga Puja on a big scale started at Balubazar in 1510, and the 512-year-old tradition continues to date.
It is one of the oldest Durga Puja pandals in the Millenium city, where Maa Durga is worshipped strictly as per Bengali tradition and rituals. On the occasion of Mahalaya, the ‘Khadi Chhada Amavasya’ ritual of Maa Durga is held. Similarly, the ‘Chakhyu Daan’ rituals will be held on ‘Chaturthi’ (the fourth day during Dussera).
The importance of the Puja in Balubazar is that their calendar, and schedule is followed by most number of Puja committees in Cuttack. At Balulazar, the idols are crafted with natural ingredients and colours, only by members of the local Bengali Brahmin families. They carry out the rituals and they will conduct the immersion ceremony.
Popularly called the ‘Binod Behari (Balu Bazaar) Chandi Medha’, people from all walks of life throng the narrow by lanes of Binod Behari near Naya Sarak to catch a glimpse of this Puja, which is being observed with same traditions for over five centuries.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu installed the idol of Binod Bihari Devi in a small house. Thereafter the place became known as Binod Behari which consisted of Balu Bazar, Bakharabad, Alamchand Bazar, Sahebazada Bazar and Nayasadak.
While daily worship of the deity was performed in conformity with Vaishnav tradition, Chaitanya himself stayed at Binod Bihari Temple, during his stay in Cuttack. In the meantime as the Durga Puja period arrived, he worshipped a brass Durga idol there. Since then, Durga Puja originated in Cuttack, as the legend goes.
Later, the local Bengali Thakur family began worshipping a clay idol of the Goddess and the tradition contiues till date. The principal (Banerjee) family which worships Devi Maa here are true Vaishnavites who once visited Puri. But while returning they settled along the Kathajodi river in the same place, Binod Bihari.
The Mrunmayee Murti of Devi is decked up in fine silver jewellery. The tableau of the Goddess, the accompanying idols of Lord Ganesh, Kartik, Goddess Lakshmi and Saraswati, besides the demon Mahisasura, is set against a majestic 30-ft-high silver filigree backdrop, which is designed with motifs of sankha (conch shell) and flowers.
A major attraction of the puja here is that the deity’s face has seen no change for the past several hundred years and all the idols are coloured with organic colours and not synthetic paints. Colours are prepared from red mud, vegetables and flowers besides a local fruit, kendu for decorating the deity.
Even today, the Durga Puja at Binod Behari is reverred and ‘followed’ in and around Cuttack. It is the only puja pandal in Cuttack where community puja is being organised every year and it witnesses footfall of at least a lakh during all the festive four days.
