Bhubaneswar, June 20: The three divine siblings - Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra - were administered a special medicine, dasamula modaka, today to help them "recover" quickly.

Like every year, the traditional families of healers prepared the medicine believed to have strong medicinal properties and submitted 120 ball-shaped preparations to the servitors yesterday.

The ayurvedic medicine, prepared on the 10th day from Debasnana Purnima, was offered to the divine siblings with servitors and healers of the deities offering all traditional cures to get the siblings fit and fine at the earliest.

Binayak Mishra, popularly known as Bina Bhaina, said that after the treatment with the dasamula modaka, the deities recover fast. The 88-year-old ayurvedic doctor, Mishra, has been performing the service of preparing the medicine for the deities since 1980. "This particular medicine has been prepared for the deities by our family for many generations. As a child, I used to assist my grandfather and father in preparing this medicine. It is from them that I learnt the technique. Once taken, it helps the deities recover from their illness completely, though some weakness continues for some more days," said Mishra.

His sons and family members assist him while making the medicine.

"The healers prepare the medicine by cutting and drying the barks and roots in the sun, then heating them with honey, ghee and camphor to prepare Dasamula modaka. It is a very powerful medicine even for ordinary people," said Ramachandra Das Mohapatra, a servitor.

It is offered to five deities - the trio siblings, Sudarshan and Madhab, all of whom are unwell. After recuperating from the illness the next morning, the deities will be given a scrub and massage, known as khali lagi, to help them recover from "weakness".

Once the sickness recedes and the deities recover a little, they will discard the white clothes and white flowers that they have been wearing during the anasara or hibernation period.