Religious sanction for Marada,secret sojourn of Lord Jagannath

Puri, Mar 9 (UNI) After the caves of Trikut hills in Western Orissa, Marada village near Hatibari hillock in South Orissa received the religious sanction from the Jagannath Temple as sacred places of Lord Jagannath.

A high-level team from the Jagannath temple team which visited the village recently to verify the facts about the Lord's secret sojourn during the Muslim invasion, acknowledged the religious bond of the place with the Lord and Puri temple and granted religious status by hoisting the ''Patitapaban'' insignia of Lord Jagannath, at the masts of the Marada temple.

The team had also visited Trikut hill near Gopatapalli village in Sonepur district in Western Orissa in the last week of February where the presiding deities of Jagannath temple were kept in secret caves for one and a half century to protect them from the wrath of the Muslim invaders a thousand years ago.

The team had urged the Archaeological Survey of India and the State Archaeological Survey of India to undertake excavation of the caves atop the hill to unravel the legend and history.

Both Trikut hill and Marada village had been elaborately mentioned in the temple records popularly known as ''Madala panji'' .

Temple sources here said the team found that the locations and the names of villages described in the Panji confirms the story of Lord's secret passages to these places to evade allien attack.

The visiting team was convinced that deities were taken through the Chilika lake in boats and arrived at Banapur from where they were shifted to Marada village near the Hatibari hillock.

A special type temple having flat top camouflaged with the forest and hill surroundings was built for the deities which was called Merada (means flat roofed structure). The team also traced four Brahmin families having ''Vatsash gotra'' like the Brahmin priests in the service of lords at Puri.

They too identified a servitor family having Khuntia title besides 75 stone artisan family in the nearby Mathura village.The team went to Huma, a secret fortress amidst dense forests, 20 kms away from Marada where the then Gajapati king took shelter.

The presence of the deities was so secret that there were no beating of cymbals, drums and trumpets during arati. As per records three hundred armed soldiers were on duty round the clock guarding the temple.

The team found ''Chaka'' (stone seats) of the four deities- Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra, devi Subhadra and Sudershan on the Ratnasimhasan which were still worshipped.The measurement and the shape of the Ratnasimhasan in Marada temple was built in accordance with that of Puri temple.

The members also visited Tikali on the foothills of Chakadimbiri hillock 12 kms away from Khalikote where lords were first kept in a cave altar till the Marada temple was completed.

UNI