On Saturday, June 21, 2014, ISKCON organized the first time ever Jagannath Rathayatra festival at Navsari.
Navsari, (pronounced "nuvsaari") located 37 kilometers (23 miles) South of Surat, in South Gujarat, is an old town located nearby the Purna River.
It's an ancient place, with a history going back two thousand years.
Here is just a glimpse of it's hoary past:
"Navsari, one of the oldest cities of Gujarat, has an inspiring history of over 2000 years. According to the Greek historical writings, a celebrated Egyptian astronomer and geographer named Ptolemy mentioned Navsari's port in his book written about 150 A.D. The geographic location he showed as Narispa, is in fact the Navsari of today.
The origin of the name "Navsari" has a very fascinating history. In the past, the city of Navsari has been associated with many names such as Nag Vardhana, Nag Shahi, Nag Sarika, Nag Mandal, Nav Sarika and Nav Sareh. Some of the legends associated with the various names of Navsari are as follows: Shayashray Shiladitya, who ruled over Navsari in the seventh century named this city NAG VARDHANA in honor of his Guru Nag Vardhana. During the same period, the name changed to NAV SARIKA as is evidenced by a recovered copper plate dated 669 A.D. The legend is that Shayashray Shiladttya presented a copper plate to a priest in his town. The copper plate read that Shiladitya, the ruler of "Nav Sarika," had bestowed a nearby village upon this priest of the Kashyapclan."
[from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navsari]
At present the population of Navsari is one hundred and thirty five thousand (one lakh thirty five thousand here in India). Residents of the Navsari town and surrounding villages -- Navsari is now a district headquarters -- have migrated all over the world, to places such as Fiji, the UK, USA, etc.
The Rathayatra began at the train station at 3 PM, and the local MP, Sri C.R. Patil presided at the inauguration. Bhakti Vikas Swami and Jasomatinandan Das ISKCON Gujarat zonal secretary addressed those gathered at the inauguration, and Bhakti Vikas Swami performed arati to Their Lordships Jagannath, Baladev, and Subhadradevi.
About a thousand, mostly congregational devotees participated in the Rathayatra procession, coming from Surat, Baroda, Bombay, Bharuch, as well locally.
Ten foreign devotees, headed by Ajamila Das and Tirthakara Das, were specially invited from Mayapur Dham to attend the Rathayatra. ISKCON Gujarat leaders, Basu Ghosh Das, President of ISKCON Baroda, and Satchidananda Das, President of ISKCON Vallabhvidyanagar also participated in the program.
The procession went through the main roads of the old Navsari town and ended at the Sanskar Bharati School grounds. There a thousand members of the public listened to lectures by Bhakti Vikas Swami and Jasomatinandan Das. Bhakti Vikas Swami, a native of England, spoke in Hindi, and Jasomatinandan Das, a native of Surat, spoke in Gujarati. Prasad packets with sweet "bundi" were distributed throughout the procession.
At the conclusion of the lectures, prasad was served to the public. There was kichadi, kadi, and lapsi. All of the prasad was cooked by ISKCON initiated devotees.
The main organizer of the Rathayatra festival was Jaya Govinda Das, a local businessman and farmer, and an initiated ISKCON devotee, who has become a very enthusiastic pracharak (preacher) for ISKCON at Navsari. He was assisted in organizing the festival by congregational devotees from Surat headed by Radhesh Das and Hanuman Das. Subal Shyam Das, who organizes the "Pandava Sena" at Surat, also participated in the festival.
Pictures of the festival can be seen at the following link: click here
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