4th Panihati Cida Dahi Festival in Bali, Indonesia

By Hari Narayana Das

The mercy of Sri Nityananda Prabhu is boundless and is ever expanding reaching all the way up to the Nusantara or the islands of Indonesia and going beyond as well. Panihati, on the banks of the Ganges, remains glorified for the pastime of Sri Nityananda Prabhu blessing Sri Raghunatha das; and today, by the mercy of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the same pastime is being freshly enacted in all corners of the globe. Indonesia too is fortunate to be a part of this wonderful pastime. This year the Merta Sari (Amrita Saar) beach of Bali became most glorious to grace the 4th Panihati Cida Dahi Festival. With more than 800 devotees from 6 temples and centres performing abhiseka of Gaura Nitai deities that arrived from each of the temples accompanied by sweet kirtan, not to mention hundreds of tourists coming to join the devotees, it was indeed a wonderful festival worth reminiscing again and again.

Preparations on the beach started the day before and continued way through the night with devotees putting up the altar and the pandal, decorations, arranging the chipped rice, assortment of fruits and other paraphernalia for the festival.

31 May, 2015, 6 am, the devotees distributed cida in the car free day at Bajra Sandi Monument. People who did morning exercise lovely accepting the cida. They puzzled how did they make this sweet fruits salad? Ignoring their curiosity, they ate and asked for more cida.

At 10 am, devotees were ready to welcome Their Lordships Sri Sri Gaura Nitai, not only the two of Them but Gaura Nitai deities from all the temples in Bali Who were carried on beautifully carved palanquins. Placing the deities on the altar arati was offered and the deities were made ready for a bath in the sea. For the tourists and the visitors it was wonderful to see the kirtan escorting the procession of devotees carrying the deities to the sea. All the Gaura Nitai deities happily entered the waters along with their carriers. After the bath the deities were brought back to the altar and abhiseka was performed. HH Bhakti Raghava Swami and HH Subhag Swami led the abhiseka ceremony. Beholding all the deities on one altar was simply magnificent. While the Pujaris dressed the deities, HH Bhaktiragava Swami Maharaj and HH Subhag Swami gave short classes. H.H. Bhaktiragava Swami expressed his happiness because a day before leaving Bali he had had a chance to participate in the most blissful festival. H.H. Subhag Swami spoke about the origin of cida dahi festival in Panihati.

After the lecture H.H. Bhaktiragava Swami and H.H. Subhag Swami went to the cida preparation and helped the devotees mixing the cida. Both Maharajas were so happy while minxing the cida. After all preparation of the cida was ready and the pujari finished dressing the Lords, the cida was offered. A fired up kirtan lead by Yoginath prabhu made the devotees fly in bliss. Then mahaprasadam was distributed to all the devotees and visitors on the beach, thus increasing the bliss. The prasadam was sponsored by Vrajendra Nanda prabhu. The devotees also did book distribution at that time. 150 of books were distributed. The sound system to support the kirtan and the tents for pandal were sponsored by Guru Caran prabhu.

Srila Prabhupada mentioned in his letter that “These public festivals have proven very effective in spreading knowledge about Krsna consciousness to all the citizens.” (SPL to Galim dasa, November 20th, 1971), and in his other letter Srila prabhupada stated that “We are finding these festivals very successful for attracting the citizens to our activities. More and more these festivals may be held, at least very large festival in a year, simply for glorifying Krsna in public places.”

All glories to Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Sri Nityananda Prabhu.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
All glories to Cida Dahi Festival.

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