Bhubaneswar: The deities of Jagannath temple were decked up in gold with their arms, palms and feet resplendent in the yellow metal as suna besha (gold attire) of Lord Jagannath and his siblings was held in Puri on Monday.
With no rain for the past two days, the sky remained almost clear, helping lakhs of devotees thronging Puri to have a darshan of the deities. Legend has it that darshan of the deities in their gold attire releases one from worldly bonds.
Nearly 138 kinds of gold ornaments, including kiriti, sribhuja, sripahara, kundala and four types of garlands namely baghamali, ghagera, mali and odiani were used for suna vesha. The deities were adorned with huge limbs made of gold as well as enormous crowns that required around 25 bhandara mekapa servitors (storekeepers) to bring it to the sanctum sanctorum from the store house. Preparations for suna besha started around 3pm on Monday afternoon.
Daitapati Binayak Das Mohapatra said: "All the suna beshas of the Lord and his siblings are held inside the temple. Only this one takes place during rath yatra."
Researcher Rajat Kumar Kar said: "The special garland, baghamali, is one of the rare species that is used by the Lord to ward off any kind of fear."
Another researcher on Jagannath cult, Rabindra Narayan Mishra, said: " Suna besha started in 1460 when Gajapati Kapilendradev of the Surya dynasty was the king of Great Kalinga, now Odisha."
He conquered Andhra Pradesh, major parts of Tamil Nadu, some parts of Karnataka to expand his kingdom. After winning over the entire Dakshinatya (southern kingdoms), he brought huge quantities of ornaments loaded in 16 chariots to offer to Lord Jagannath.
"The king arrived in Kalinga the day after bahuda yatra and ordered his priest to carry out suna besha of the Lord," Mishra said.
The state administration on Monday made arrangements for devotees and deployed nearly 145 platoons of police for smooth conduct of the festival.
The police arrangements during rath yatra and suna besha were made under the direct supervision of additional director-general of police Satyajit Mohanty. He was assisted by inspectors general S.K. Priyadarshi, Amitabh Thakur, Sanjeev Panda, Asheet Panigrahi, deputy inspectors general Himanshu Lal, Rajesh Pandit, senior IPS officers and special operations group commandant Anirudha Singh in managing crowd in the temple as well as outside.
Meenakhi Mohanty, a doctor, said: "Today, I had a good darshan of suna besha. During the ritual, one gets to see the God as a human being with his hands and feet. I have never missed suna besha in the last 20 years."
