CUTTACK : Even as the millennium city soaked in festive fervour on the occasion of Ganesh Puja on Saturday, a temple at Badhei Sahi in Buxi Bazar continued to be a crowd-puller with people in large numbers thronging the shrine to seek blessings for their children.
Believed to be around 800-year-old, the Ganesh idol here is around 5 ft tall carved out of a rare single black polished stone. As per belief, if children seek blessings from the Lord here on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi, they would never face any hurdle in education.
“Getting children seek blessings from Lord Ganesh here protects them from every obstacle,” said Purna Chandar Tripathy of Buxi Bazar who visited the shrine along with his grandchildren.
Legend has it that this Ganesh idol was worshipped inside Barabati Fort. However during invasion by Kalapahad, the idol was thrown into Rani Pokhari, a pond inside the fort, to protect it from being destroyed by the invaders. Later, some washermen of Narayangarh in the city discovered the idol in the pond following which stone artisans of the fort retrieved it and installed the idol in their locality near Kanika Chhak which was later renamed as Ramagarh.
The then Maratha king, who was ruling at that time, had donated 11 gunth of his landed property for carrying out the daily rituals of the Lord. Later in 1800 during British rule, the idol was shifted to Makhanpur Pathuria Sahi which is presently known as Badhei Sahi in Buxi Bazar locality.
Since then, people of Chari-Sahi Biswakarma community have been worshipping the idol by constructing a permanent temple at Badhei Sahi. “One Sashimani Bewa donated her house and one gunth land for conducting temple rituals,” said joint secretary of Chari-Sahi Biswakarma Samiti Bijay Kumar Moharana.
Over 100 children visited the temple on the day to seek blessings from the Lord here.