{"id":7529,"date":"2020-04-15T17:12:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T11:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=7529"},"modified":"2020-04-15T17:12:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T11:42:00","slug":"meru-jatra-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/meru-jatra-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Meru Jatra festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"hero-section\" data-type=\"type-1\" data-alignment=\"left\">\n<header class=\"entry-header\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Relevance: Prelims: Art and culture<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<\/section>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>\u2022 Odisha\u2019s Ganjam district administration has banned the Meru Jatra festival and congregations related to it at temples on the <strong>occasion of Mahavishub Sankranti.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><b>About:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/2020\/4\/14\/9\/4\/53\/danda_nata.jpg\" alt=\"Odisha's Ganjam district administration has banned the Meru Jatra ...\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u2022 <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Meru Jatra marks the end of the 21-day-long festival of penance named \u2018Danda Nata\u2019. Mahavishnu Sankranti is also the start of the Odia New Year.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u2022 On this day, thousands of devotees used to gather at the Tara Tarini hill shrine and other temples.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Only one priest will be allowed to enter each temple to perform the rituals. Earlier, the administrations had banned the famous Chaitra festival at Tara Tarini hill shrine that attracts lakhs of devotees.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Danda Nacha\u00a0<\/b>of Ganjam is considered as the most ancient traditional form of worship. Participants of Danda Nacha are called as \u2018Dandua\u2019 and the chief is known as \u2018Pata Dandua\u2019.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4><b><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Key Features:<\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><b>The Dandua troupes move from village to village to perform the dance which is dedicated to\u00a0Lord Shiva and Goddess Kali.<\/b><\/li>\n<li>They perform\u00a0<strong>Dhuli Danda, Pani Danda and Agni Danda.<\/strong>\u00a0On the closing day, Danda Nacha is known as \u2018<b>Meru Yatra<\/b>\u2019 which is observed on the day of Mahabishuva Sankranti in Odia month of Chaitra.<\/li>\n<li>During the 21-day ordeal,\u00a0<b>Danduas<\/b>\u00a0remain\u00a0<b>away<\/b>\u00a0from their home and wear the sacred thread. On \u2018Meru Sankranti\u2019, the troupes return to their villages. After performing their usual rituals, Danduas participate in \u2018Kamana Ghar\u2019 where a yajna pit is set up with three poles.<\/li>\n<li>Later, \u2018Pata Dandua\u2019, head of the troupe who remains inside the Kali temple for 21 days, is brought out after a bath of\u00a0<b>vermilion<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li>He is made to walk on burning coal before being hung\u00a0<b>upside down\u00a0<\/b>on the horizontal pole till a few drops of\u00a0<b>blood<\/b>\u00a0ooze out from his\u00a0<b>nostrils<\/b>\u00a0and fall into yagna pit in the presence of thousands of devotees.<\/li>\n<li>After the ordeal is over, Danduas go to Kali temple to offer their gratitude to the Goddess.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>For more such notes, Articles, News &amp; Views Join our Telegram Channel.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" title=\"Telegram Link\" href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/triumphias\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>https:\/\/t.me\/triumphias<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Click the link below to see the details about the UPSC \u2013Civils courses offered by Triumph IAS.<\/strong> <\/span><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" title=\"Courses available\" href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/pages-all-courses.php\">https:\/\/triumphias.com\/pages-all-courses.php<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relevance: Prelims: Art and culture Why in news? \u2022 Odisha\u2019s Ganjam district administration has banned the Meru Jatra festival and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-7529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7530,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7529\/revisions\/7530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}