Puri: Beating humidity, lakhs of devotees thronged to the sea side pilgrim town Puri to witness the auspicious Suna Besha of Lord Jagannath and his sibling deities on their respective chariots on Wednesday evening.
Gold ornaments weighing around 200 kg were brought from the temple treasury to the chariots by servitors amid tight security at around 5.30 pm.
It took almost two hours for the special servitors to decorate the idols of Lord Balabhadra, Lord Jagannath and Devi Subhadra atop the chariot.
The ritual, which is also called Rajadhiraja Besha, performed smoothly. Mahaprabhu along with his siblings will give darshan on Suna Besha till 11 PM.
During Suna Besha ritual, Lord Jagannath is adorned with a Chakra made of gold in his right hand and a silver conch in his right hand. Lord Balabhadra is decorated with a gold plough in his left hand and silver mace in the right hand. Devi Subhadra is also prettily adorned with her best golden and diamond ornaments.
The other ornaments that the deities adorn are Harida Kadamba mali and Baghanakhi mali, only for Lord Jagannath, Kiritta, Ears, Bahada mali, Tabija mali or garlands, Kadamba mali, Sebati mali and Tilaka, Adakani, Chadra-Surya, Allaka, Odiani, Chandrika and Tadaki.
This morning, rituals such as Abakasha, Mangala Alati and Mailama Tadapa Lagi were carried out. Other major rituals such as Sandhya Alati, Madhayna Dhoopa, and Gopalballava were carried out before Suna Besha.
The Holy Trinity has completed their nine-day journey to Gundicha temple. They will return to Srimandir the day after tomorrow. The Trinity would spend two more nights on their chariots. On Monday, they would be offered ‘Adharpana’, a special holy drink.
Meanwhile, elaborate security arrangements were made with deployment of a large number of police personnel to regulate vehicular traffic.
About 190 platoons of the police force have been deployed for the security and crowd management for the Suna Besha.
Barricades have been raised from the municipal market square to Singhadwar. All the devotees and the visitors are allowed to go through the barricades in the queue and after darshan they will return through Badadanda.
All the by-lanes connected with the Badadanda have been sealed. This apart special traffic management has been enforced along all the routes leading to Puri.
Vehicle parking places are regulated and drones are used to monitor the crowd movement through two integrated control rooms. Senior police officers are entrusted for smooth conduct of devotees.
A three-layer security cover has been laid around the three chariots during the Suna Besha. Arrangements are made for the VIP and VVIP darshan of Suna Besha.