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City of temples celebrate auspicious Durga puja : Devotion marks Maha-Astami at 17th Century old Hari Mandir
TIWN Sep 28, 2017
City of temples celebrate auspicious Durga puja : Devotion marks Maha-Astami at 17th Century old Hari Mandir
PHOTO : Maha Astami celebrated at Udaipur Hari mandir. TIWN Pic Sep 28

UDAIPUR, Sep 28 (TIWN): Less known, but one of the oldest temple of Tripura’s Gomati Dist located Udaipur city ( the city often known as Lake City or City of temples was the capital of Tripura for a long time) Hari Mandir or Durga Mandir witnessed full devotional rituals of Ma Durga on the occasion of Maha Ashtami. Devotees have thronged to the Durga temple, a silent place for prayer situated near Jagannath Bari lake. TIWN visited the temple on Maha-Ashtami morning where people were busy in offering prayers, bhogs to Devi Durga. However, talking to the priests of the temple, they mentioned the Durga idol has not been changed for this Durga puja and it’s only changed once in a year during Basanti Puja in the Chaitra month. This Hari madir is however famous for Basanti puja and Durga puja is also observed with equal enthusiasm.

The Durga puja priest for 2017 has been selected as Dibyendu Chakraborty who is doing ‘puja’ since the Shashi evening. However, question raised, if it is Hari-Mandir why Devi Durga puja is held here ?

This temple which is situated by the east bank of Jagannath Dighi, detail information about the temple is not available,  though it seems the temple possessed stone-inscriptions. Perhaps it was built some time in the last quarter of the 17th century. It's still unknown who built the temple.

When and for which deity has it been built is not known either.  

The temple was once recovered from the grasp of creeping vegetation in 1901 A.D and a painting of Radhakrishna had been installed inside and it was adorned as 'Hari Mandir'.

The painting has been donated by Boroda Kanta Nag,  a disciple of Loknath Bramhachari from Baardi Ashram. He had come to Udaipur with the intention to raise a hermitage. The temple has been built on an elevated paved platform. It was surrounded by a wall. The bi-roofed (consisting of two Chaalas) vault of the west-gated temple leads one to the courtyard,  then to the vestibule. Two buttresses decorated with pitchers on them stand tall at the two corners infront of the vestibule.

 The wall feautres horizontally protruded ribs. Prof. Kartik Lahiri mentioned in his book 'Tripurar Moth Masjid o Girja' (Monastery,  Mosque and Churches of Tripura ) that the northern and southern walls of the vestibule feature multishelved parapets and the smooth surface between the parapets and the highest rib is ornamented with triangular lines. The vestibule leads to internal chamber and the core-chamber. The core-chamber is tetragonal in shape. The apical part of the vestibule and the core-chamber were built in the form of stupa.

After being designated as Hari Mandir,  Dol festival is celebrated every year in the temple.

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