Puri: The Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) today urged the hotels, guesthouses and restaurants to educate their staff to spread awareness among visitors/ pilgrims regarding the recent decision of decent dress for devotees visiting Shree Jagannath Temple.
“Since many such visitors and devotees are used to staying in hotels and guest houses which are the originating points before coming to Temple, we urge you to educate your staff, tourist guides and yatri pandas collaborating with you to spread awareness among the visitors in this regard,” SJTA chief administrator Ranjan Dash stated in a letter to the President and Secretary of the Hotel & Restaurant Association of Puri.
The awareness campaign will continue till the end of the year. The temple administration will take stringent measures to ensure the advisory from the New Year, he added.
Even though the SJTA has not prescribed any illustrative list of dresses, the devotees are left with their conscience to wear decent and appropriate dresses. Men may wear pant, shirts, chudidar-punjabi and dhoti while traditional attires like sarees, salwar-kameej may be used by women devotees, the letter stated.
A proposal to urge devotees to wear appropriate and decent dresses was adopted in recently held Niti Sub-Committee Meeting of SJTA.
People coming in shorts, transparent and revealing dresses, torn and ragged Jeans and other inappropriate costumes should be discouraged to continue with such practices, the SJTA mentioned.
Citing the examples of other shrines of different religions across the country and abroad regarding their particular dress codes, the administration said that decent dresses would ensure religious sanctity and spiritual ambience in religious places.
The SJTA said that scholars, researchers, priests and devotees of Lord Jagannath had been demanding for introduction of the same in Puri Srimandir.
