BHUBANESWAR: After keeping Lord Lingaraj hungry for over 24 hours, the Samartha servitors on Thursday resumed their ‘seva’ and provided vegetables that were used to prepare Kotha Bhoga for the presiding deity.
Under ‘Niansha Pali’ of the Lingaraj temple, Samartha sevayats have been providing raw materials used for cooking ‘bhoga’ and ‘puja’ of the deity. Owing to tiff between the servitors and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) over operating shops outside the shrine, the former on Wednesday did not provide ‘biri’ and ‘chaula bata’ to Suara sevayats for preparation of Kotha Bhoga for Lord Lingaraj despite requests by Brahmana, Puja Panda and Maha Suara nijogs. As a result, all rituals after Surya Puja, had to be suspended and the presiding deity was not offered Kotha Bhoga.
The Samartha servitors have been demanding BMC to allow them to operate shops selling puja paraphernalia in the beautified space outside the shrine. “They had been operating such shops illegally. Since their shops were removed recently, the servitors were threatening to boycott seva,” said secretary of Badu Nijog Kamalakanta Badu.
On Thursday, the temple trust board held talks with the Samartha servitors and assured them to look into the issue following which, they agreed to provide vegetables for Kotha Bhoga preparation. “The Law department should look into finding a permanent solution to servitors’ issues in the temple. This is not the first time that rituals have been stalled over servitors’ disputes. Since the Lingaraj Ordinance is yet to be promulgated, the servitors are not bound by any norm to continue their seva inside the temple,” said Biranchi Narayan Pati of Brahmana nijog.
The issue of shops inside and outside the Lingaraj temple was earlier raised by the Centre. In 2022, the Home and Culture ministries had objected to the ordinance over the presence of shops within and outside Lingaraj temple on the ground that the shrine cannot be used for any purpose not inconsistent within its character.
In its reply, the state government had clarified that the ordinance intended to minimise the number of such shops.